


The Kingdom of Heaven

by XIX



Category: Original Work
Genre: #Schadenfreude, Antichrist, Armageddon, Black Mass, Blasphemy, Christ, Drugs, F/M, Gen, Heresy, Love Story, M/M, Marilyn Manson - Freeform, Ministry, Paranormal, Philosophy, Post-Apocalyptic, Public Execution, Rebellion, Religion, Resurrection, Sacrifice, Second Coming, Supernatural - Freeform, True Love, Witchcraft, and the bitch gets his for it, anti-Christianity, anti-hypocrisy, child sexual abuse but offscreen, messianic figure, miraculous powers, subculture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 63,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XIX/pseuds/XIX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Be your own gods. Go home and tell other people this: the secret of God is that he's in the mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. STAR

**Author's Note:**

> I realize the punctuation is unusual. I wanted to convey the idea of "hearing" without hearing, as one does in a dream. It may grow on you, it may not, but I kinda have to make them the way they wish to be made or I can't make them at all.

_for MM_

  
_I am the Alpha and the Omega._  
Revelations 1:8

_Go to the desert!_

Sumerian Exorcism, _Necronomicon_

 

 

 

 

BOOK ONE:  
STAR  
(1) 

 

They almost got him.

The sun was setting, straight ahead, glaring on miles and miles of sand, scruffy little bushes, brown grass and patchwork highway. He was trying to shield his eyes with his hand, trying to ignore the ominous scraping coming from the truck's ancient engine, trying to tell desert from road.

And they almost got him.

There were two of them. They never traveled alone. Two battered Buick police cars, the lettering sloppily whited over, black crosses spraypainted on both doors, the hoods, signifying the new kind of police.

One of them was inches behind him, the other walling him on the right. Through his passenger-side window he could see the cup of one headlight gaping empty, the grille splattered with dark stains that weren't mud.

His throat burned, his hands clotted into fists on the steering wheel. He stared straight ahead, into the sun. _One hundred miles. A hundred miles left, two hours, and they get me now._

The current slang for them was the thoughtpolice. If they thought you'd look better dead, they wouldn't hesitate to test the theory. They were wolves. Anyone alone out in the wilderness was easy prey.

He didn't have a gun. Didn't have a knife. He was six-foot three, not bad in a fight, but this wouldn't be a fight.

Adrenaline shook him hard. He was freezing to death here, in the middle of the fucking desert.

They wouldn't turn the lights on. No flashing, no sirens. Just a hard slam, grinding metal and the truck mangled in the sand, hands dragging him out through the shrapnel into the bloodred light.

The one behind him swerved by, just kissing his bumper hard enough to jolt him into making a small frightened sound. 

Then, they roared past him.

He watched them, his eyes watering, until the skein of road pulled them ahead of him into specks, then over the horizon.

He coaxed the truck off the road, rattled along for a few feet and cut the ignition, even though he wasn't certain it would start again. The sun was gone. The shadows were already miles long, blurring together into night.

He listened to the engine, hissing and ticking, listened to the desert spread out vast around him. He cried a little, for the space of two breaths. The sound of it was so ugly and small he stopped, ashamed.

 _They could have had me,_ he thought. He wrestled the door open in a fit of claustrophobia, climbed out and let it creak closed. He climbed up into the cab and sat with his back against the rear window.

He groped in his pocket for a crumpled Camel box, took out a half- smoked joint, lit it with a bent match.

He drew in deep green smoke, staring out into the desert until his hands were steady again.

One hundred miles. Two hours or so.

He was lucky. The engine turned over on his fourth try. It wailed and rattled its way into awkward stumbling life, ground into gear, and scraped back onto the highway.

 

The war had ended six years before his birth.

The world it had left behind was a colorless place of sporadic electricity. There were strange new laws. The government was a vague, distant shell, a bad attempt at disguising a rotting core of bankruptcy and despair. Any reference to democracy was lip service. They still held joke elections. Nobody cared. It was quiet anarchy.

People lived in huddled little towns, self-governed. Most towns were securely rooted in a strange savage brand of Christianity, with extremely self-serving interpretations of the Bible. 

Underneath this narrow cold society a subculture existed, of those who could not or would not live under such limitations. A vague sort of code had formed over time. There were careful rules governing all those who lived outside of the organized townships. In this underground world of drugs and semi-freedom, you lived by who you knew, or who would speak for you. 

The problem was that conveniences like cash, food, and medical attention were only available in townships. Most of the pariahs lived a double life. They would travel from place to place, living in towns, saving up cash and supplies, then fleeing out into the wilderness until necessity drove them back into the maw of society again.

Each township was its own dangerous game. You either followed the local laws of behavior, or you left. Quietly. In the dead of night.

And you drove fast.

 

He had, of course, doubted the directions given to him.

_Take Route 66 past Dunwich. About eight miles later, you'll see a big cliff, dead white like somebody scraped it with chalk. Stop there. At dawn, you'll see the angel. We'll be waiting about sixty miles north of her._

Angel. Hell, _Dunwich,_ for that matter. Wasn't that that town from the Lovecraft stories, where those lizard people lived?

 

Then, turn left and drive across the desert when you see a goddamned angel? What would it be, anyway? Some obscene plaster tourist attraction?

An amputated handcuff still dangled from his right wrist, the chain clattering occasionally against the steering wheel. Above it, his arm was decorated with just-scabbed cuts, long, shallow, swerving gashes.

Jordan was a dear, sweet soul who had saved his life two days ago, but he wasn't so talented with a hacksaw. It had been dark in the jail, and he hadn't made a sound even at the deepest of the cuts, gritting his teeth, closing his eyes.

Hell, he was probably lucky he still had his _hand._

Flashback: startled out of sleep, his cry muffled against wide long fingers that smelled of opium. He was crouched in the floor of the cell, his left arm handcuffed to the bunk. The snap of a cigarette lighter. Jordan's face, lit up like a jack-o-lantern, barred by dreadlocks.

_Be quiet. If they catch us, we're dead. ___

__The terrible cramp in his arm when the chain finally broke. Hugging Jordan, fast and frantic, saying _my friend, my best friend, my only friend, thank you, thank you. You just saved my life.__ _

__Jordan had laughed. _I woulda missed you, you freak.__ _

__Then, the gritty, dizzy run out of Haven, into the edge of the desert. He remembered feeling the dark windows on either side of them, waiting, dreading that the lights would flicker on. He was only running hard and fast, his breath deafening in his ears, horrified by this exodus, running, gasping in a deep wide panic, with a stab of pain in his left side. He was overwhelmed by the awful fact that this was fun in some terrible irrational way._ _

__Then, the rusted grinning hulk of the truck, waiting patiently beside Jordan's insane surrealist excuse for a motorcycle. It was almost impossible to stop running, almost impossible to stop that animal instinct to run until he dropped from exhaustion._ _

__Jordan, panting, whispering. _There's water, food, blankets, gas...most of your books and stuff. I couldn't get everything so I brought the ones I thought were important. Take Route 66 past Dunwich...__ _

__

__He shook his head, pushed back his long hair. It was filthy. He could smell himself, like the smell of clothes wet with seawater and left to dry._ _

__The headlights worked, anyway, otherwise he would have missed it, a battered sign that read Dunwich 37._ _

__Well. What was that C.S. Lewis book, where they were searching for signs? The Silver Chair?_ _

__He'd spotted the first one, anyway._ _

__

__Dunwich was an abandoned little hellhole. Skeleton cars, collapsing wooden buildings. A single brick structure, hopefully labeled CITY HALL._ _

__He pulled over to the side of the main road, put it in park, let it idle. He didn’t really have any hope of finding anyone. He was tempted to do something insane, like yell, _hello, is anybody out there?_ It was getting to him, the emptiness, especially after the cops. Just anybody. A bum. An insane combination of the Unabomber and Thoreau would have been fine with him. Anybody, as long as it was another human being._ _

__He stepped out of the truck, left the engine running. It was too goddamn hot to be believed. The air was like a chemical assault, scouring away what little moisture remained in his throat. The sand was hellish, slapping him in the face immediately._ _

__“Jesus,” he muttered to himself. He pulled the neck of his t-shirt up over his mouth and nose, squinting, raising one hand to shield his eyes. The dust was spraying around the edges of his sunglasses, stinging his eyes so badly it reduced the world to a white blur._ _

__He was tempted to keep driving. Still, even if there was no one here, there might be something worth scavenging. Food, or water, or blankets, electrical equipment…the list of useful items was endless. Gasoline. Spark plugs. He remembered reading in one of the garage-press magazines years ago, when he was maybe ten, that spark plugs by weight were worth more than cocaine. And the value had only gone up. He had left Haven with considerably less capital than he’d planned. It would be foolish not to at least look around._ _

__He bundled up his hair, stuffed it down in the collar of his shirt to keep it from smacking him in the eyes. Dunwich was a little one-street town, with ratty board buildings lining either side of the main road. He started trying doors. It was in the code that you didn’t break a locked door unless your life depended on it, even if you knew damn well that no one had been inside the building for years._ _

__Nothing. The only door that opened was what had once been the post office. He took two ballpoint pens from there, and stuffed them into his pocket. It was creepy, inside, reeking of dust and something sickly-sweet that he suspected was a dead animal._ _

__He kept walking along the left side of the street, trying to cling close to the sides of buildings for what little shelter it offered. Ahead, there was a fenced-in yard, the chain-link rusting. He decided to investigate that, and then head out._ _

__There was a spindly crooked gate, which he forced open. From what he could see, it had once been some kind of park or playground. Technically. Realistically, it looked like a dog pen._ _

__The little yard was against the side of CITY HALL. There was some kind of dismembered engine lying in one corner. It drew his attention so quickly that the only way he saw the painting was out of the corner of his eye._ _

__It spun him around in a rough circle like a blow. There was a quick vicious pain in his chest, like the rumor of a heart attack. The wind snapped up hard, heavy. He felt surrounded._ _

__The figure was larger than life, done in spray-paint so thick that even the constant desert had hardly scarred it at all. It was a careful, almost talented painting of a man with long black hair, elongated narrow limbs, with his hands raised to the sky. Dim ghostly figures crowded around him like an army. The man was staring directly out at the viewer, with mismatched eyes. One whiteblue, one dark hazel._ _

__He pressed his hands to his chest, gasping. His fingers found his sunglasses with the quickness of self-preservation, adjusting them to cover his eyes completely._ _

__He backed away from it, nearly killing himself in the gate. He turned, fled back to the truck, without grace, without cool._ _

__

__He drove through Dunwich in less than five minutes, shaken so badly he was afraid he might throw up. No Order of Dagon here. Shame, really. He could have asked for directions. He laughed at that one, raked his hands through his hair, chewed his bottom lip._ _

__He lit the joint again, steering with his knee. Turned on the radio hopefully, listened to static and squealing that was probably space noise, and turned it off again. He was fighting the urge to talk to himself. In that direction, madness lay._ _

__The sun drifted across the sky, too slowly, like a hallucination. The sunset was edged with vivid green. Toxins. He moved the little sunvisor over to block it._ _

__He almost missed the cliff in the darkness. He just happened to notice one clump of rocks jutting higher than the rest. Something made him risk going into reverse and switching the highbeams on._ _

__It was as white as lime._ _

__The joint scorched his lip, forgotten. He dropped it, picked it up again, set it in the corroded ashtray._ _

__He pulled off the highway._ _

__

__Dawn came too early, too bright, and forced him awake. He'd fallen asleep still sitting in the driver's seat. He was one ache from the back of his neck to his ankles._ _

__He managed to pull one of the canteens out from under the seat. One of them was water, the other vodka. He stared at it, wondering which, then drank anyway. Vodka. Oops. Oh well. At least it was wet._ _

__Then, he looked up, and saw the angel._ _

__It was half rock, half shadow. The angle of the light was the only reason he could see the illusion at all. It looked a little like a statue of Justice._ _

__Damn, he thought. Not such bad directions after all._ _

__He persuaded the truck to start, turned just past the illusion. Right. The sun stared after him, lighting particles of sand on his windshield._ _

__

__It was only sixty miles or so, along an almost-trail. It was evening when he finally made it. The sand was level enough, packed hard enough not to drag at the tires too badly, but the truck had added a new horrifying noise to its repertoire. It overheated around noon. He had to wait almost three hours before he dared to start it again. He stripped down to his underwear, wet his hair with vodka. He slept across the front seat with both doors open for what little breeze there was._ _

__God, the heat was incredible. Nobody in their right mind tried 66 in the middle of fucking July._ _

__After that he kept it at twenty when he could. Sometimes he had to go so slowly he could have walked faster. He was about to shut the damn thing off and just sleep underneath it, walk the rest of it in the morning, when he saw the thin trailing plume of smoke against the sky, just to the left, about a hundred feet away._ _

__He went even slower, cut the engine. Flashed the headlights twice._ _

__He waited five minutes._ _

__Jordan was only a shadow, walking towards him, hands busy with a long narrow shape._ _

__\--It's you?_ _

__\--Yeah, he called back._ _

__\--You're alone?_ _

__\--Jordan, it's just me. Put it down, you're not James fucking Bond, he said, exasperated._ _

__Jordan lowered the gun._ _

__He climbed out of the truck, stiff and tired. Nothing had ever felt so good as being able to straighten his knees again._ _

__\--Jesus, he muttered, stumbling._ _

__\--Long drive?_ _

__\--And terrible directions, he agreed, not exactly joking._ _

__\--Yeah, so you got here, didn't you? Jordan pointed out._ _

__He ignored that, started to walk towards the fire, built in the shelter of a sheer block of stone, when he noticed that Jordan wasn't following him._ _

__A trap? he wondered, feeling instantly guilty for even suspecting such a thing--then again, you couldn't be too careful. Not in the kind of a world it had become since the war. Not in the middle of the desert._ _

__\--So are we going back, or what? he asked, trying to sound casual._ _

__\--Um. I should tell you, uh, that--_ _

__He had already seen._ _

__He stopped, standing perfectly still, paralyzed._ _

__At first he thought it was a woman, until the man turned to look at him. He got a stunning mosaic of a chin-length cap of black hair, delicate fey features, wide gray eyes. Then the man turned away again, raising one hand in a careless languid wave, holding a cigarette between two long fingers._ _

__\--That's Zillah, Jordan told him, with his usual lack of social awareness._ _

__He eyed Jordan. The expression on his face was the usual too, a kind of oblivious happiness. It almost made him laugh. _As far as he's concerned, that's all I need to know. His name,_ he thought, grinning a little, still unnerved._ _

___Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe._ _ _

__

__He sat by Jordan, trying to stay as far away from Zillah as possible without being too obvious about it. He pulled his fingers through his hair. The entire length of it was greasy, gritty. He wrapped his arms around his knees._ _

__Jordan handed him a pipe. He took it without asking, hit it absently. He had to move considerably to pass it to Zillah. Their fingers touched. He sat down again, wrapped that hand in the sand, his jaw tight._ _

__\--There's more stuff out in the truck, he said._ _

__\--I'll get it, Zillah offered, shocking him with the texture of his voice. Strange. He had a clipped, almost northern accent. His voice was much lower than it should have been._ _

___How old is he? Fifteen? Thirty?_ _ _

___What the fuck is he doing here?_ _ _

___This is just all I needed right now._ _ _

__He tossed the keys over, waited until Zillah was out of eavesdropping range, and turned to Jordan._ _

__The question broke apart on his lips._ _

__Jordan's eyes were following Zillah, out to the dim shadow of the truck. His face was as transparent as it had always been. The look in his eyes--pure adoration--left the question already answered._ _

__He asked it anyway._ _

__\--Jordan, you're not...are you? The two of you? he said, more pleading than asking._ _

__Jordan gave him a stark, sad look, then turned to watch Zillah again._ _

__It made him straighten his back, sorry he had spoken. He helped himself to the pipe again. --Jesus, Jay. That's crazy. Do you know how dangerous that is? he said, quietly._ _

__Jordan shrugged, still looking out into the desert, muttered something inaudible._ _

__\--What?_ _

__\--I said, I don't _care_ how dangerous it is. I...I love him, I think, Jordan told him, sounding almost angry, defensive._ _

__There was a long silence after that._ _

__Zillah returned carrying the two canteens, with the sleeping bag over his shoulder._ _

__He took his bag from Zillah, muttering something similar to _thank you._ He unrolled it, extracted the package of drugs. More marijuana. A twist of paper around a rainbow clump of pills. A gummy ball of fragrant opium, the size of a shooter marble. An rusted tin box that said Altoids in faded letters, packed full with a baggie of cocaine._ _

__Flashback: in the little office outside the jail cell, flashlights casting the room in strange crooked angles._ _

__Jordan behind him, saying, _Are you crazy? Come on, they'll fucking hear that.__ _

__Himself, kicking at the filing cabinet again and again with the steel toe of his boot, seeing bleeding faces and broken jaws, until it exploded, choking up a neat little shoebox full of Haven's confiscated drugs from the past year. He had been yelling, over the crashing of his kicking, They _fucking owe me. At least this much, they fucking owe me. This will feed us in places where cash won't, keep us from caring when nothing we have will feed us._ More furious incoherency along those lines, scrabbling through paperwork and confiscated switchblades, shaking in rage._ _

__The handcuff was still stinging around his wrist, the cuts from the sawblade raw and aching._ _

__Jordan laughed, dragging him out of his dreaming. --This has got to be the best thing you ever got out of that town._ _

__He grinned instead of answering. It wasn't much, stealing the police's little lockbox of dope on the way out, just an immature little bit of payback. There was more there than he had expected in a town as small as Haven had been, but he hadn't really done it for the dope. He had done it so he could think about the police coming in the next morning and finding their wrecked little office._ _

__\--Out of what town? Zillah asked._ _

__He held up his arm, showing him the handcuff. --Haven, he said shortly._ _

__\--I heard Haven wasn't such a bad place, Zillah remarked._ _

__He glanced sharply at Zillah, searching for some insinuation in the question. Either there wasn't one, or the man was one Hell of an actor._ _

__\--It isn't. Unless you do something stupid, he said, trying not to sound angry._ _

__Zillah laughed. --What did you do that was _that_ stupid? he said, gesturing at the cuff._ _

__\--Zil-- Jordan began, sighing. --Don't._ _

__He ignored Jordan. He didn't answer either of them. He only stared at Zillah until he'd made his point, turned his attention back to reloading the pipe. He was tempted to say, _nothing half as stupid as the two of you are doing._ He didn't. _ _

__Because that wasn't entirely true, was it?_ _

__

__Much later, when the fire was a dim glow and the stars were leaving glittering trails as they melted down into the desert, someone nudged his shoulder. He struggled to find his way back to Earth. Zillah was leaning over him holding out one of the canteens._ _

__He took it, and when he put it to his lips he discovered it was filled with some ungodly strong kind of alcohol that made the vodka seem like cheap beer. He swallowed, struggling not to choke, handed it back._ _

__Zillah drank too, without blinking. --I'm sorry I said that to you, he told him, abruptly._ _

__He shrugged. --It's okay._ _

__\--Did they.... Zillah hesitated. --Hurt you, I mean?_ _

__He closed his eyes and his teeth, too hard. --Not really._ _

__

__He was out at his truck again, sometime much later. He'd assembled a pile of pebbles and was standing on the tailgate, tossing them as far as he could into the darkness, one by one._ _

__Jordan wandered over to him, stood watching until he ran out of rocks. Then, they both sat, for a minute or an hour, before he finally gave in. --Jordan, you might as well ask me._ _

__\--I don't know if you're mad about it, or something._ _

__He shrugged. --Why would I be? I did what I had to do. They were cops. They were doing what they had to do. That was it._ _

__\--What did you have to do? Jordan asked, in a very small voice, hardly daring._ _

__He sighed. Lit another joint. When the smoke had done its trick of unlocking his throat and smoothing the edges of this ugly story, he began it._ _

__

__(2)_ _

__

__Haven hadn't been a bad town. Not really. There was electricity in most of it. Even though it was little more than a wide place in the road, there was enough food to go around, and work if you knew where to look for it and you weren't picky about getting your hands dirty._ _

__He'd left Jordan out on the highway, with food, a tent and orders to wait._ _

__He'd gone into town feeling wary. Some places had immense, violent prejudices against outsiders. In other towns, he had been beaten, attacked, chased, even shot at once or twice, simply for not belonging there._ _

__He had found that here in Haven, the locals were more or less indifferent to his presence. They were coldly polite, that kind of civil hostility that was carefully practiced to let him know he was permitted to stay even if he would never be exactly welcome._ _

__He'd rented a room from a crooked thin man who wore battered dyed-black overalls and a woman's black wide hat, dripping veils. He'd gotten a job in an antique store the next day, and a second night job in a warehouse moving loads of wood and scrap metal._ _

__Two days later, three men in blue had come by his room to talk with him. They'd simply explained their own little local laws, not very original by any stretch of the imagination: fear God, love one another, work your ass off or get the Hell out of Haven._ _

__It was a very sedate, calm discussion, one in which he nodded in all the right places, smiled in the closest way he could to friendly. His books had still been in boxes and bags, thank god. The Bible he always put out first was lying on a scrap of wood beside his mattress._ _

__He tried to come across as a little slow-witted. From the grins they gave him and the looks they gave each other on their way out, he supposed he'd succeeded. After they had gone he'd laughed a little, muffled behind one exhausted hand, warehouse dirt still under his fingernails._ _

__

__\--Did they tell you the Ten Commandments?_ _

__\--Yes, they did. Made me repeat them back, he said, smiling a little, almost sadly._ _

__\--You weren't really going to stay there? Jordan asked, almost fearfully. Like he didn't already know the end of the story._ _

__He shook his head, drank from a bottle of truly horrible peach schnapps. --No. Just trying to lay aside some cash. Move on._ _

__\--We're still looking for it? The Sanctuary? Jordan said, pleading. He already knew the answer. He just wanted to hear the words again, in the only voice he trusted._ _

__\--Yes. We're still looking, he said._ _

__Jordan nodded, the line of his mouth smoothing back into a curve. --Did they arrest you?_ _

__\--Not then. Not yet, he said. --That part came about two weeks later._ _

__

__It was a long two weeks, the days a blur of backbreaking work and cheap alcohol. He avoided getting into his tiny stash, afraid to even smoke weed with the crooked man in the rooms below him, probably bent over a worn Bible, sniffing the air, casting suspicious glances towards the ceiling._ _

__He'd walked out to Jordan's little camp once or twice, told him he was fine, that Haven would be a good place to get some cash, brought him supplies. This was their usual procedure. Jordan was uncomfortable and unwelcome in most townships. He had no social skills whatsoever. His incessant happiness and oblivious innocence made him a target._ _

__The owner of the antique store had figured out that he actually had intelligence, and began leaving him alone during the day. God only knew where the man went. Drinking or whoring, probably._ _

__On his third day alone, she walked in._ _

__She was a woman sketched without a single straight line, smooth perfect curved hands, breasts that drew his eyes with uncomfortable magnetism. She was wound in an almost cloying veil of sensuality, almost a scent or a taste in the air. She had long thick dark-blonde hair, a doll's face with lips so full he wondered if she might be part African or American Indian. Her round eyes were a dark blue-green that looked artificial against her copper skin. She was wearing a deep purple sundress that fit her badly, some thin fragile material that would have been a soft enigma under his hands._ _

__\--You're not from around here._ _

__It wasn't a question. Whatever the Hell it was, it wasn't flirting. It was almost an accusation. She was testing him hard with her eyes._ _

__He didn't move, but he backed off quick just the same, a psychic closing of doors, testing deadbolts. He erased the reaction in his eyes, that strange mix of attraction and revulsion._ _

__\--No, I'm not, he agreed, and didn't offer anything more._ _

__He wondered what she was. She seemed to be some kind of reptile wearing human skin._ _

__She smiled. It didn't reach those eyes. His mind was curled around an awful image, of himself putting his hands down inside the low neck of her dress, cupping her breasts, only he was afraid his fingers would press right into her flesh, as if through rotting meat._ _

__\--I saw J.D. and Isaac come from down your way. Couple of weeks ago, she said._ _

__The police. She knew where he lived, then. He shrugged, pretended interest in the first piece of paper he picked up, an incomprehensible invoice of some kind. He was glad the battered counter was between them._ _

__\--So what did they say? she asked, insistent, looking at him so hard he wanted to physically step back._ _

__He shrugged again. _How eloquent of you,_ muttered the automatic little voice that men, even men like him, were born with. That voice that thought the point of existence was to Get Some. She wanted something from him, that much he knew. He wondered what a thing like her could possibly want. --Not much. Just ran me through the rules, about Leviticus, all of that. It's the same thing you get everywhere._ _

__She smiled. This time, it did touch her eyes, but she was Alaska-cold. He wanted to crouch down behind the counter, hide from her until she went away, He stared at the invoice again, thinking _danger, danger...__ _

__She was leaning over the counter, narrowing the barrier of space between them. She was forcing him to look back. She smiled even wider, pushing the smile into him through his helpless eyes._ _

__He felt his lips pull back in a stiff rictus, against his will. She smelled of sweat and dust underneath a strange perfume that made him think of burning hashish._ _

__\--Yes, she said. I've been everywhere, too. Same old thing._ _

__There seemed to be a dark allegiance between them, suddenly._ _

__\--Some of us are getting together, tonight. We could go. You could get to know everyone, she suggested, her voice silky, almost a whisper._ _

__\--I don't really plan to stay here all that long-- he began, his throat tight, his hair damp with sweat under the band he'd used to pull it back._ _

__\--If you go, you might change your mind. Haven's not such a bad town. Especially with the right friends._ _

__He sighed. He knew, suddenly, that this was the next step, that he would go with her whether he wanted to or not. --Where is it? he asked, defeated._ _

__\--I'll come by for you, she said, already turning to leave._ _

__\--Wait. What's your name?_ _

__She made a strange face at that. --Lucretia._ _

__

__They were both lying in the cab of the truck, now._ _

__Jordan was inching closer._ _

__He gave up, let Jordan snuggle against him, even put his arm around him. He supposed Jordan was the closest thing to family he had._ _

__Jordan sighed happily. --So was she gorgeous?_ _

__That was just like Jordan to absolutely miss the point by concentrating on a nonexistent bright side. --No. Yes. She was..._ _

__He stopped. He wasn't sure there was a word for her. If there was, it wasn't a nice word. It was a dark-closet corpselight word._ _

__\--Anyway, he said quickly. --I went home after work--_ _

__

__He was walking with his head down, watching the dust swirl around his combat boots. The sun was glaring out of the western sky, slashing around the sides of his dark glasses. He'd pulled the rubber band out of his hair. It hung past the middle of his back, wisps of it blowing against his face. It would be filthy tomorrow; he would have to wash it in the rusty sink in his rented room. Right now, he didn't care about that. He wanted to feel the wind, to see the black strands snapping across his vision._ _

__Lucretia was there, sitting on the last step of the rickety wooden staircase that led up to his door. She held up her hand, for him to pull her to her feet. The purple dress had been replaced by an oversized gray coat over something that had a long black skirt. She had painted just her eyes, with thick black lines that were artless, almost deliberately grotesque. Her hands were soft, feverishly warm. He noticed that along with her strange makeup her nails were raggedly long, crusted with dirt and faded chips of red nail polish._ _

__\--Wait. I need to go in, he protested, already being pulled towards the street. He realized how impossible it was as soon as he said it. He couldn't see her waiting outside on his steps. He sure as Hell wasn't going to let her into his house. He would never have been able to sleep in there again._ _

__\--Why?_ _

__\--Because, I need to change-- he improvised, thinking he could lock the door, ignore her until she went away._ _

__\--Don't worry about it. She gave him that uncanny smile. He noticed she had black makeup caked in her eyelashes. --It won't matter. We should get there before it gets too dark._ _

__

__\--After that, he admitted to Jordan, his voice fragile and strained, --it gets...blurry._ _

__He was stroking Jordan's dreadlocks absently, staring up at the stars. It looked cold up there. Clean._ _

__\--How does it get blurry? Like drugs?_ _

__\--It _was_ drugs. And it was... He searched for words, for reasons, for justification, for something he could have done differently. --It was bad. The whole thing was just...bad. Wrong._ _

__\--Don't you want to tell me? Jordan asked him._ _

___No, I don't, but you saved my ass, and you deserve an explanation,_ he thought._ _

__

__(3)_ _

__

__Lucretia led him in a crooked daze through the worst part of town. It was overcast, making the night a strange shade of gray-violet-yellow, the color of an old bruise._ _

__The houses were spread out now, the yards crowded with trees and kudzu, dead washing machines and skeleton cars. She stopped at the hulk of a boat--a boat, here--with a weird scary symbol painted on it in red, drew him through the vacant lot behind it, into a tangled confusion of underbrush and trees._ _

__He followed her along a thin trail that eventually widened into a kind of dirt road. He heard crickets and frogs, and cracklings and rustlings that were probably snakes and rats and God knew what else. They went past, and occasionally over, piles of trash that had degraded until it was unrecognizable. He thought he saw a sewing machine, an industrial wringer, an old screen door, and a heap of crooked planes that might once have been scrap wood. He was resisting the urge to rake his hands through his hair. He had a horror of ticks. --Where are we?_ _

__\--The woods, she told him. --You can't really have any kind of party in town, so we come out here._ _

__Oh. Now he understood. He knew what kind of party this would be. He'd been to hundreds of them. Lucretia, maybe a couple of other girls, a few good old boys, sitting around smoking shitty homegrown weed and drinking beer. She'd probably be in his lap the minute they sat down, trying to impress some redneck local with her infidelity. At best, he'd get a couple of drags of free weed, shitty or not. At worst, he'd end up getting a social disease, or getting the shit beat out of him from her jilted ex. Or both._ _

__He rolled his eyes, because it was too dark for her to see him. For this, he was walking through this mess of trees and grass and insects._ _

___Lucretia._ _ _

__There was something wrong with that name. His mind kept sneaking back to it, to worry at it like a blister or a toothache._ _

__And there was something terribly wrong with his theory of this party._ _

__

__First of all, there were a Hell of a lot more people than he had expected. A couple of girls? A few good old boys?_ _

__There were at least thirty people gathered in a wide round clearing, and more wandering in. None of them were putting off the ignorant swamptrash vibe he had expected. A truck parked just outside the edge of the circle was blasting grating industrial through its open windows. He caught the scent of opium, the thick wet green of marijuana, the dark sweet sticky kind._ _

__He stiffened, dragging hard at Lucretia's hand. --Wait. I don't know about this, he hissed at her, urgent and frantic. --I didn't know there would be so many people._ _

__She turned back to him, with the kind of expression that would have been called a prom queen look a decade earlier, a sharp mixture of amusement and scorn. --What are you, afraid of crowds or something?_ _

___Not crowds. This crowd._ _ _

__It was too late. It was already happening._ _

__For as long as he could remember, he had been afraid of something. Cops. The local dealer. Tornadoes. _Ticks,_ for chrissakes. All kinds of irrelevant things. This was the one fear that disguised itself in all the other little terrors: he had always been afraid he was some kind of impostor._ _

__It was insane, he knew that. He had given up trying to explain it to anyone after several bad experiences with laughter or disbelief. He didn't really blame anyone for their reactions. He could only imagine how he looked, gesturing wildly, repeating over and over, _not me, another me. Don't you get it?__ _

__He was afraid he would walk into a room one day, and find himself already there. Another him, talking to his friends, wearing his clothes, saying all the right things, never coughing after a drag, and he himself would become as irrelevant as he'd always known he was. He would cease to exist because he never truly had. He would disappear. No one would miss him, because the _real_ him had finally arrived._ _

__He was afraid that doppelgangers did exist, and that he was one._ _

__He was afraid he would find his replacement in this crowd._ _

__Lucretia was not at all the kind of person he could tell any of that to, even if he'd had time._ _

___Please,_ he thought, or said. Lucretia dragged him up to the truck, to a skinny freak trio whose leader was already holding out a pipe. It was Ministry blaring out of the stereo. _ _

__\--I'm Kether, the guy yelled over the music. He had stringy dyed-green hair, a safety pin through his septum. --This is Christine, and Raleigh. He gestured at the girls beside him._ _

__\--Hi, he mumbled, and took the pipe. He tasted weed, cocaine, something like a ground-up dandelion. It was horrible. Something blue flashed in front of his eyes._ _

__Lucretia took it from his stumbling hand. --He's new in Haven, she said, as if he_ _

___(wasn't really there at all)_ _ _

__wasn't capable of speaking for himself. Which he wasn't really, he had to admit. He tried not to notice Christine making eyes at him, thought longingly of his one battered room, his mattress and crooked columns of books. He wanted to go home. He tried to remember how he had gotten screwed into coming here._ _

__The pipe went around too fast for him to catch his breath between hits. He was sure Christine and Raleigh were just passing it, but he couldn't catch them doing it. Lucretia and Kether--there was something wrong with _both_ of those names, come to think of it--were having some kind of discussion about whether or not somebody had found anybody for tonight. _ _

__\--I need to sit down, he said, to no one in particular, which was fine, because no one paid any attention to him anyway. He stumbled past Raleigh and sat on the tailgate. He could feel the vibrations from the speakers pounding into his back. The metal underneath him was wet with dew, soaking through his dirty jeans. He shivered._ _

__He looked around, past this little group at the rest of the party. He didn't see himself. Not yet. The only other person with long black hair was a girl in a sleeveless leather jacket who probably outweighed him by fifty pounds. _Maybe I'm not here yet,_ he thought._ _

__\--Hey. You all right? You're just staring off into space, Lucretia said, her hand high on his leg. He wanted to squirm away from her. He wanted to walk back across town, out onto the highway where Jordan was camped, sit there safe and listen to the bullshit on the CB and play I Spy. Anything but this._ _

__\--I'm fine._ _

__\--Come with me. I've got a surprise for you, she said, pulling him to his feet again._ _

___Great. She'll probably try to blow me. Or worse. I don't want this. I don't want her._ _ _

__She led him into the edge of the woods, behind a tangled clump of scruffy palm trees where the shadows were thick. She pulled a vaseline jar out of the pocket of her heavy coat. --Take your shirt off._ _

__The drugs had left him illogical and dizzy. The vaseline gave him all kinds of confusion. Did she want him to fuck her? Already? He pulled his black t-shirt over his head. He already knew enough of Lucretia to realize that argument was pointless. He only said, --What do you need that for?_ _

__\--It isn't vaseline, she told him, unscrewing the lid. holding it out for him to smell. --It's to put on your skin._ _

__The scent was bitter and strange, a blue-violet sharp poisonous smell that he felt he should have recognized. --Jesus, he muttered to himself. He turned around to let her start on his back, pulled his hair up with one hand. This was the weirdest seduction he had ever seen. The odd thing was that she didn't seem to be trying to seduce him at all. She smeared it on him with clipped efficiency, not roughly, but with none of the unnecessary teasing he expected._ _

__He only stood there, holding his shirt in his free hand. Whatever it was, it freezing cold on his skin, in a menthol kind of way, making his teeth chatter and his skin crawl. By the time she turned him around to work on his chest his back had warmed, the stuff becoming almost hot. The smell was blinding._ _

__\--What happened? she asked, about the scars, but she didn't pause. She dabbed her fingers in the jar again, started at his collarbone and worked her way down._ _

__\--Nothing. I was a kid, he said. Two lies in one night._ _

__She shrugged._ _

___She doesn't care,_ he thought. It didn't really bother him. He didn't care about her, either. Her fingertips brushed his nipple. He gritted his teeth. He wasn't aroused. Not at all. What he really wanted was to shove her away from him, as hard as he could, or worse, hit her, maybe. _ _

__Flash, incoherent this time: the sound of a belt clearing belt loops, breaking glass, a siren, the taste of lemonade._ _

__He closed his eyes tight, opened them again, blinked quickly. She left her hand low on his stomach for too long. He looked down at her, saw that mocking smile again. --Sorry, she offered, not really sorry at all._ _

__She took off the coat, dropped it on the ground, unzipped the shapeless black dress. --Will you do me?_ _

__\--Do it yourself, he muttered, having a flashback of putting his hand into a dead possum while hiding from the cops. He pulled his shirt on again. It stuck to his skin. He tugged at it, irritated._ _

__She did. He tried to breathe around the deadflower smell, tried not to look at her. He was tingling, now, everywhere she had put that stuff, under his skin, muscle deep. Something was wrong with his heartbeat. Strange colors moved across his vision._ _

__\--What was that? he asked her, suddenly frightened._ _

__\--It's nothing. Just gets you high. It's harmless._ _

__He pressed his hands to the sides of his head, shaking, pressed hard against his chest, left of his sternum. Pressure. Something that was not exactly pain--more like a sensation of choking. --My heart...breathe...it doesn't feel harmless._ _

__

__She laughed. When he grabbed her she made a little startled cry, the first time he had seen her drop the act. The vaseline jar fell from her hand, rolled twice, picking up dirt, twigs._ _

__He shook her once, hard, staring down at her. He was almost shouting now. --I said it doesn't fucking _feel_ harmless, now tell me _what the fuck it was!__ _

__The mask dropped back over her face. She gave him a whore's smile, hanging limp and complacent in his hands. --It makes it so that you can fly. Don't you want to? Fly?_ _

__He let her go. There was pain, now, deep in the left side of his chest. --Poison. You poisoned me..._ _

__\--Oh, quit it, she said, in disgust, retrieving her precious jar and wiping off the dirt with her sleeve. She zipped her dress again, picked up her coat, tucked the jar back into the pocket. --You just saw me put it all over myself, too. You're fine._ _

___Yes, I said so myself, didn't I?_ _ _

__The trees were spinning around him. The ground was spinning too. His eyes were stinging._ _

__Lucretia turned and left him there._ _

__For a minute or so, he thought she was just stepping away, to breathe, or to see if he would go over to her, try to apologize. She didn't stop. She kept walking, back towards the party._ _

__He followed her, desperate suddenly, almost running, sure that if she left him he would never know which direction to go. He stumbled, the ground striking at his knees, merciless. He gasped out, --Lucretia._ _

__She made some frustrated sound, turned back to him. She didn't move to help him, only stood over him until he pulled himself swaying onto his feet. --Come on, she said, impatient. --They're waiting. It'll start any minute now._ _

__The Ministry had stopped. It was replaced by drums too immediate and crisp to be the product of any speakers. --I'm not stupid, he snapped at her, suddenly furious. --I know what this is._ _

__She stared at him, daring him to say it._ _

__\--It's a Black Mass, he accused her, laughing just as abruptly as he'd been shouting. --You dragged me out here to watch the local rejects try to summon Satan. And Lucretia is not your fucking name, he added, just to spite her. --The Sisters of Mercy? How original is that?_ _

__Lucretia gave him a tight thin smile. --I thought you were one of us. Maybe I've made a mistake._ _

__\--I'm not one _of_ anything, he told her. He could see the clearing now, blurry, crooked. He walked past her. The drums were getting louder. She was right. It was starting._ _

__(4)_ _

__

__He sat with his back against the tire of Kether's truck. He watched them build a bonfire, watched the revels grow less careful, more ugly. Christine and Raleigh were kissing a few feet away from him, moaning hungrily. He glanced towards them. Raleigh raised her hand to touch Christine's neck and he saw the tracks on the inside of her arm like the lines of an infected wound. Her eyes were open. She saw him looking and lowered her eyelashes. _Come over here. There's room for one more.__ _

__He looked back at the fire again, ignoring her offer. Lucretia was there, naked now, spinning, laughing. Her nipples were dark brown. There were faint stretchmarks on her stomach._ _

__Flash: a handful of bruised meat wrapped in towels, tied in a garbage bag, buried in these woods about a hundred yards away._ _

__He shook his head violently. It did not leave him. It only settled back into the sludge at the bottom of his consciousness. He could not forget it. He knew it was not a hallucination._ _

__That was all he had ever been good at. The truth. Especially the truths that no one wanted to know about._ _

__He thought he saw himself, across the clearing, sitting against the wheel of another red truck, except that Christine and Raleigh were curled close to him, swarming over him like snakes, drowning him in a tangle of heroin limbs. His nerves went into a cold fusion deadlock. He stared hard. He saw that it was that girl again, the one with long dark hair. He knew it wasn't him, because both of her eyes were the same color. And the figures in her lap were both male._ _

___It's not you. See? Not you._ _ _

__He tried to relax. His skin ached, his muscles knotting and relaxing spasmodically. He didn't feel like he could fly. He didn't even think he could walk. They were chanting a silly bastard-Latin invocation that sounded like the soundtrack for a bad Italian horror movie. There were large winged things swooping and diving above the crowd that he knew were group hallucinations. They could have been bats or demons or mutant insects. He wasn't sure. He didn't bother to look too closely._ _

__This was uncomfortable, unpleasant, a waste of his time. He felt vaguely embarrassed for them, these idiot participants in this mindless rebellion. He couldn't decide whether what he felt for Christine and Raleigh was pity, scorn, or a strange envy._ _

__He was jealous of their ignorance._ _

__He wished something this inane had the ability to make him happy._ _

__He wished he felt like a part of it, like he belonged to this, to anything, even something as pathetic as this._ _

__His mind kept spinning these random things, over and over, emotions chasing images chasing sensations. He closed his eyes. That made it worse, but he kept them closed. He wrapped his arms around his knees, laid his forehead on his arms, stared at the backs of his eyelids. There were glyphs written there. One was his own face, painted like an Egyptian god. Another was a cross with yellow feathers nailed to it._ _

___Fuck this. I'm going home,_ he decided. He stood up and fell badly this time, striking the back of his head on the tailgate of the truck. When he pushed himself up onto his elbows they were bringing out the boy._ _

__Kether was watching, appreciatively, smoking a joint. The boy couldn't have been a day over sixteen. Two men were dragging him, almost carrying him. He was bound hand and foot, gagged with a strip of cloth, another scrap tied over his eyes. The boy was breathing hard, sweating, shaking violently enough to make his captors hold him with white knuckles and gritted teeth. He was resisting, refusing to pick up his feet, trying to pull his arms tight against his chest, moving his head convulsively in what might have been an attempt to shake off the blindfold._ _

__

__\--Hey, Jordan whispered. --You okay?_ _

__He didn't answer for a very long time. Then, he whispered, fiercely, -- _No,_ and ground out the awful rest of it._ _

__

__He called out _Hey._ Even as he said it he realized that even if he was really there, none of them could hear him over the drums, over the strange chaos noise of their own indulgence._ _

__He said it again, louder this time. --Hey!_ _

__No one heard him._ _

__He realized he was lying on the ground, half-propped up on his elbows, with his hair hanging dirty and possibly bloody in his face. He also realized that he was extremely chemically altered, that the words were pushing themselves oblong and difficult past his lips. The entire scene of victim-party-bonfire was printed in a skewed diagonal slideshow on his retinas. Maybe the entire thing was a hallucination._ _

__He could not let this happen in front of his eyes, hallucination or not._ _

__He screamed out something that was not a word. None of them moved. He had known they wouldn't. He screamed again anyway, tried to push himself up onto his hands and knees. He couldn't._ _

__He couldn't._ _

__It was only a boy._ _

__He _could not_ push himself up. Could not even really move, except a vague pathetic flailing of his one free hand. He was still lying on his stomach, one trembling elbow pushing his head and shoulders up. _ _

___Oh my god._ Heavy cold dread snapped closed around him like a noose._ _

__He hadn't really been trying before. That was it. God _damn_ it, he was still six-foot-three, and he was not afraid, not of a punch in the face, not of a crowd of doped-up rednecks. He could stand up and save this frightened child, he just hadn't tried hard enough yet. _ _

__He tried, now._ _

__He fought with every agonized inch of knotted muscle and aching bone, fought against the numbing tendrils of the concoction Lucretia had paralyzed him with, fought against the fear of nonexistence, fought against the grating longing to lie in the dust and hurt and wait for dawn._ _

__He had to stand up. He had to. He could take this boy, strike down the evil bastards holding him, pull him away into the woods, hide deep and low in the weeds and brush until the drunken lunatics had given up searching for them. He could..._ _

__He couldn't._ _

__He couldn't move, except for an epileptic quivering of his free hand, tracing mysteries in the dust, and his mouth, shaping silent words._ _

___Jesus, drugs, it's just drugs, I've had drugs, I can move if I really fucking want to..._ _ _

___...I always could before, I have to, just a boy, I have to move, MOVE..._ _ _

__His eyes were staring at the boy, and the boy's kidnappers were dragging him into the center, the very center of the clearing, and the silly chanting was louder and more scary than ridiculous, now..._ _

__He tried as hard as he could, his teeth gritted, dragging at every deadweight inch of his body with every last ounce of his will. He managed a weak moveless trembling, and then his arms gave out. He was lying on his side, his face in the dirt, still looking at the boy. His mouth shaped _wait_ and _don't_ and _don't do this_ and finally _you can't._ And that was all he could do. Even his lips were numb. He was horribly conscious, so aware that he could smell the sweat from the mad witches ten feet away, could smell last week's rain in the ground, could smell the boy, the acrid orange scent of his terror, and the drugs they had given him._ _

___I don't want to see this,_ he thought. He knew it was cowardice. He couldn't help the boy. He didn't want to see whatever would come next. _ _

__They were forcing the boy down on his knees, Lucretia and another faceless woman spinning around him in a spastic wild dance, and _he didn't want to SEE what would come next and his fucking EYES would not close.__ _

__If he saw this, he would see it forever, in acid tunnels, in dreams, inside his eyelids. He did not want to carry those pictures around, did not want the weight of them in his brain. His thoughts were heavy enough without the burden of this abomination._ _

__They were closing in on the boy. Kether was one of the first, laughing with crooked teeth, naked and aroused._ _

__It wasn't their fault. They were rebelling against an unbearable world. They were becoming their own casualties, and this sexual victim could have been any one of them, probably would be on some other unholy night._ _

__He hated them anyway._ _

__He watched until the blood came. He fell over onto his back with one convulsive struggle, staring up into the sky, at the stars watching all of it, sterile._ _

__He could hear it, over the drums, over the sounds that might have been grief or ecstasy. A liquid obscene sound. Rape._ _

__He stared at Orion and cried, hopeless, horrified. The tears stung in his eyes like acid. His limbs were heavy, burning with unknown drugs._ _

__It went on for hours._ _

__His mouth was paralyzed, useless meat. He could only speak inside the space of his skull. He thought the same litany over and over._ _

___You're all crazy. I can't believe this is happening. You're all crazy._ _ _

__

__He stopped his story, crying too hard to speak. He was sitting up now. Jordan tried to put his arms around him, worried and somehow small beside him. He pushed Jordan away, cried by himself until he was finished, staring up at the icy stars, staring up at Orion._ _

__He sniffed, swallowed hard, scrubbed his hand over his face when it was over. He glanced back towards the fire to make sure Zillah wasn't paying attention, feeling that for Zillah to see him in this weakness would be an irreparable thing._ _

__He drew in a deep breath. His lungs hitched. He took another breath and started over._ _

__

__When he woke up, he was alone. The cars were gone, the crowd was gone. He was lying on the ground soaked with dew. He had a headache so vast it had spread throughout his body. Every joint was filled with broken glass. Big, jagged chunks of it._ _

__He sat up like a rusted android, biting back a groan. There were dead leaves in his hair. His mouth was filled with the taste of rotting fruit._ _

__He spit twice, and just managed to push himself up on his knees before the retching started. He vomited violet shards of something he didn't remember eating, knelt up shaking and wiped his mouth with the bottom of his shirt. The smell of whatever Lucretia had rubbed on him set him off again. Finally he stood up and staggered away from the mess, making a silly small noise of misery._ _

__He heard something in the woods, a few yards away. He stood staring out into the darkness, scared for an unknown reason. --Lucretia?_ _

__A faint moan. The vegetable crackle of leaves and twigs._ _

__He knew what it was, then. He broke into a clumsy hung-over run. --I'm coming. It's all right. I hear you, hang on, he yelled._ _

__When he reached the boy he almost stepped on him. They had thrown dirt and leaves and debris over him. His face was so filthy that he had probably been digging himself out of a shallow hurried grave_ _

__He grabbed the boy under his arms and dragged him out of the earth. The boy cried out, flailed with his arms, his legs, sending both of them to the ground in an overbalanced tangle._ _

__He sat up, half-holding the boy in his lap, tried to help him wipe the dirt off his face, out of his mouth. The boy was fighting him still. --It's okay. I'm not one of them, I'm trying to help you. It's okay._ _

__The boy was not okay. He was bleeding, and incoherent, muttering things about goats, sobbing over angels with pointed teeth. When he realized he was no longer buried he shrieked and began to struggle to reach the ground again._ _

__He finally dragged the boy to his feet and forced him to walk. The sky was getting lighter, and he went north, back into Haven._ _

__

__(5)_ _

__

__\--And they arrested me for participating in witchcraft and sodomy, he finished._ _

__He didn't tell him the scary part._ _

__The scary part was that on the way back the boy had stopped breathing, and his heart had stopped beating. He had done a thing he had sworn to never do again, and made him live. Forced him to. Forbade him to die, more or less._ _

__Flash: his hands on the boy's chest, over his limp still heart, and death like a flesh veil between them. He was screaming, _don't, don't you dare,_ tearing and pulling and tearing with a power he didn't understand._ _

__He closed his eyes, trying to fold up the images until they were too small to see._ _

__Jordan was silent._ _

__It was awkward. He sat up and groped in his pocket for God knew what, drugs probably. Jordan handed him the canteen again. He drank the rest of it._ _

__\--They didn't arrest anyone else? Jordan asked, finally._ _

__He snorted at that one. --Why would they? They had their scapegoat. A skinny weird drifter with long black hair who never showed up in that pressed-wood church with the out-of-tune piano._ _

__\--You're not a _drifter,_ Jordan protested. --We're on a _quest.__ _

__\--Oh, yeah. I forgot that part of it._ _

__He had found a twist of cocaine in his pocket and was toying with it, vaguely trying to figure out a way to do it with the wind blowing and not much of a horizontal surface. The dashboard? If he rolled up the windows? He'd have to contort to manage that. Maybe one of his books. Ha. Doing coke off of the cover of Magick in Theory and Practice. Or the Necronomicon._ _

__\--Is there a safehouse near here? he asked Jordan. They couldn't stay in the desert much longer. They would need food, a place to sleep that didn't have anything to do with sleeping bags. Dear God, a shower._ _

__Jordan grinned. --That's the surprise. A really really good friend of mine has one about a day from here. His name is Spectre. I dreamed about him two days ago so he probably knows we're coming._ _

__That was Jordan for you. He smiled. He wasn't any better, with his little goddamn flashes. He didn't read much about that kind of thing happening before the war. Now, it was fairly common, even though those who were gifted tended to keep it quiet. He wondered if the biochemical weapons had anything to do with it. --Is Spectre good people?_ _

__\--Yeah. He's like us. He's even more psychic than you, I think, except in a different way. He knows about ghosts and when it's going to rain and stuff._ _

__\--What does he need?_ _

__That was the system. Safehouses were anything from storage sheds to houses to shacks to abandoned bomb shelters, owned and operated by those who quietly opposed the theocracy. In return for providing shelter and whatever comfort was available, anyone who took refuge there gave back whatever they could--drugs, labor, stories, anything._ _

__\--He wants you to tell about the thing we're looking for, Jordan said promptly._ _

__He sighed. He should have known. --Couldn't he take some of the stuff from Haven? There's the opium--_ _

__\--He only uses weed, and he grows his own. And he makes LSD. He doesn't use much else. It's just a story. Come on. He wants to hear it._ _

__He sighed. --We should all get to sleep. We can leave together tomorrow. I'll put that deathbike in the back._ _

___If you sit in the middle,_ he added to himself._ _

__

__Zillah had spent their conversation setting up an idiotic looking sort of a tent, using four stakes and a square tarp that was about ten by ten feet. It was only about four feet off the ground, with the tarp folded over on two adjoining sides to make a vinyl wall. He had arranged the sleeping bags underneath. --I figured this might keep the worst of the sand off, he said, still staring into the campfire and smoking._ _

__He caught the scent, and shuddered. A clove. It reminded him of Lucretia._ _

__\--Oh, cool, Jordan said happily. He crawled underneath immediately, damn near collapsing the entire thing._ _

__He stared at the contraption, sighing mentally. Goddamn it. He didn't want to crawl under this thing like an idiot camping on the beach. He didn't want to spend the night sleeping there, listening to their breathing. He was too tired to argue about it, and too irritated to ignore it._ _

__He crawled under beside Jordan, his back, head and jaw aching. He dragged his sleeping bag--sleek, waterproof, stuffed with thick feathers, lined with thick plaid cotton--away from the other two, looked at the battered army-surplus ragged thing Jordan was using as a sleeping bag, and whispered, --Trade me? I think I'm allergic to mine. It itches me._ _

__\--You don't want this one. It sucks, Jordan hissed back, not buying it at all._ _

__\--I just want to trade you, he said. His sleeping bag was about six feet across, zipped closed. Jordan's was obviously only intended to be a single occupancy model._ _

__\--No, you don't. You want me to have yours because yours doesn't suck. You're just doing that thing you always do._ _

__He gave up trying diplomacy. He threw his sleeping bag towards Jordan and snatched the army bag. Jordan put up a brief struggle, using tickling, poking, light smacking, and two word protests as his primary weapons. He finally got tired of the game and shoved Jordan hard enough to seriously endanger the structure of the tent. The battle ended when he had cocooned himself in the olive green bag and refused to let go of it._ _

__Jordan gave up and spread the new bag on the opposite side of the tent. --Jerk, he muttered. His voice was too soft to be convincing, and his eyes were happy, but sad._ _

__\--I'm trying to sleep, he muttered, laying on the irritation too thickly to be convincing._ _

__\--Well, good _night,_ then, Jordan told him, in that silly prissy Sunday-school teacher voice that always cracked him up. _ _

__He grinned in spite of himself. --Night._ _

__

__He had drifted into an uneasy sleep, caught in a thin ragged dream. He was in a burned out cathedral, trying to comfort the ghost of Joan of Arc when something jolted him awake. He lay there, shaking with irrational adrenaline, feeling as though he had just escaped falling from a cliff._ _

__He was still covered up. There weren't any large evil insects around him. Maybe the dream had been what woke him. It hadn't seemed threatening or scary, only vague and sad._ _

__Then he heard it again. The rustling of blankets, and the softer silken sound of skin against skin. A soft murmur that might have been words, or wordless._ _

__He turned over so that his back was to Jordan and Zillah, wrapped his arms around his head. He pretended to still be sleeping, pretended not to hear. He was thinking ugly murderous thoughts, sharp mean thoughts about how it would be if Zillah were not there. He and Jordan would lie there telling stupid jokes and kicking each other. Jordan would keep inching closer until he was too sleepy to be sneaky and he would whine about being scared to sleep out in the open, and couldn't they sleep next to each other?_ _

__He would refuse, until he was too sleepy to be arrogant and he admitted he was a little scared to out in the open too. They would spend the night curled up together, in the desert, in an abandoned building, in a parking lot somewhere. Anywhere. He would lie awake long after Jordan was asleep, sometimes daring to touch the wiry dreadlocks, smelling his skin, like a very young child underneath all the dirt._ _

__They were not lovers. He had never even considered that idea. Jordan had kissed him once, while extremely drunk. He'd kissed him back politely and patted his shoulder. They'd never spoken of it since. They were family, or something. He had been the goddamned parent since he and Jordan had met._ _

__He hoped, a little bitterly, that they were comfortable. Jordan had been right. This sleeping bag did suck. It was like lying on a threadbare towel spread over a cold slab of marble._ _

__He curled up tight, closed his eyes, and concentrated on sleeping, on not hearing, on not thinking. His last coherent thought was _and if that bastard Zillah wasn't here, Jordan and I could have shared both sleeping bags.__ _

__

__Flash: he was fifteen, one of the few real memories he had before his adulthood. He was in a one-room schoolhouse in a nameless town. There was a weird kid sitting in the back with the slow learners--affectionately known as the retards. This kid was tall, skinny but big, with vast hands and vivid bones. He cried constantly, and the other kids made fun of him, called him stupid, freak, queer._ _

__He went up to this strange fragile being, after school one day. --Hi._ _

__\--Leave me alone, the kid said, covering up most of his face. --Go away._ _

__\--I don't want to hurt you, he'd said. --I'm not like them._ _

__The kid had looked up at him, sitting on the ground in the shade, from under a tangled thick mess of long black hair. --Promise?_ _

__\--I promise. What's your name?_ _

__\--Jordan. Or Jordie. Or Jay, the kid told him, looking amazed at being treated like a human being._ _

__\--Do you want to get out of here, Jordan?_ _

__\--Sure. School's over._ _

__\--No, I mean here, like out of this town. Go out._ _

__Jordan frowned. --Where would we go?_ _

__The story was there, without his knowledge, automatic words. --There's a place I've seen in dreams. A sanctuary. Where nobody is ever mean to anybody, and everybody is free. And I want to find it, only I don't want to go alone._ _

__\--I want to go there! I'm sick of mean. I'm sick of rules. I can't draw stuff here because the other kids take it and tear it up. And they hit me. I get in trouble if I hit back 'cause I'm bigger than them. Can I really go with you?_ _

__He nodded, and impulsively reached out and ruffled Jordan's mess of dirty hair. --Sure. I'd like that._ _

__Jordan took his hand, like a child, and let himself be pulled to his feet. --Where is it? Is it far?_ _

__\--I don't know, he said. --We have to search for it. It's like a quest, I think._ _

__\--A quest for the Sanctuary, Jordan repeated, carefully, as though he were arranging this in his mind. He nodded, slowly. --When can we go?_ _

__He had looked around at the plywood town, at the other kids staring at them with pure Christian hatred of anything that didn't fit in. --Right now, he said. --Right fucking now._ _

__\--Right fucking now! Jordan parroted, joyfully, and too loudly, gaining them some muttering and even meaner stares. --Are we friends, then?_ _

__He nodded. He liked this childlike being. Jordan didn't scare him. His strange long bones were easy on his eyes, and those huge hands were gentle, almost shy. --Yes. We're friends._ _

__\--Forever?_ _

__\--Forever._ _

__\--I never had a friend, I don't think. Jordan said, following him obediently. He scrunched up his face, deep in thought, and finally concluded, --If I did, I don't remember any._ _

__\--Me either, he said, smiling in spite of himself._ _

__

__(6)_ _

__

__He woke up with Zillah whispering at him. --Shhh. Jordan's still sleeping, he whispered._ _

__\--What do you want? he whispered back, half-afraid._ _

__In answer, Zillah lifted his handcuffed wrist, and slipped a contorted piece of metal into the keyhole. The makeshift key scraped its way through a muffled series of grating clicks, and the handcuff snapped open._ _

__He stared at it, not believing it, and said finally, --Thank you._ _

__Zillah shrugged, and the handcuff struck the sand with a soundless thunk. --Bury it, he advised, already turning towards the dead ashes of the fire._ _

__He rubbed his wrist, grateful and resenting it. --Why did you do that?_ _

__Zillah shrugged again, avoiding his eyes, covering the remains of the fire with handfuls of sand. --I've been in handcuffs before. It starts to hurt you, having to look at them, feel them._ _

__\--If you were with Jordan, why did you let him use a hacksaw when you could just pick the lock? he asked, before he realized how petty it sounded._ _

__\--Because I won't go in a jail. I can't, Zillah said flatly. --I've been in enough jails to last me the rest of my life._ _

__He thought of the smell in his cell, of the words KILL ME scratched into the concrete, and nodded. He could understand that. He wasn't especially eager to see the inside of a jail again himself. --Well, thanks, he said again, lamely._ _

__Zillah said nothing. He was packing up their belongings._ _

__

__Jordan did in fact sit in the middle. He immediately began explaining where Spectre's safehouse was, in terms that were both cheerful and incoherent, punctuated by giggles. This was possibly due to the fact that his breakfast had been four Twinkies, a beer, and two lines of cocaine._ _

__Zillah finally put his hand over Jordan's mouth. --Go due northwest. You'll see two big posts made of concrete about forty miles away. Ewww._ _

__He interrupted himself to glare at Jordan, who had just licked his hand.  
\--When you see those, go straight west between them. _ _

__\--How big? he asked, trying to start the truck and ignore Jordan's wiggling and indignant muffled complaints._ _

__\--You won't miss them. There's rocks and shit that keep you from going the wrong way. That's why we camped out here in the middle of nowhere._ _

__The truck wheezed and swore and rattled like it was full of broken glass and bent nails, and finally surrendered. It started, puttered, and kept running. There was a compass stuck to the dashboard with wintergreen chewing gum. He pointed the hood ornament--a cross made out of scrap metal to fend off the cops--to northwest, and put it in drive._ _

__Zillah took his hand off Jordan's mouth. --Love you, he said, peering out the dusty windshield._ _

__\--Fucker, Jordan muttered, and giggled, ruining it._ _

__He sighed. It was vaguely sickening, watching them. Not because of that, either. Because it made something cold and hard and selfish knot up in the pit of his stomach._ _

___No one will ever be like that with you. Not someone so weird, so funny-looking, so tall and skinny and hopeless._ _ _

__\--Do you have a cigarette? he asked Zillah. He didn't smoke. He wanted it to punish himself with._ _

__Zillah lit him one and handed it to him without a word. It scorched his throat, made his eyes water._ _

__He gritted his teeth, smoked it anyway, ignored the voice, and drove._ _

__

__The voice didn't take kindly to being ignored._ _

___If only he wasn't so pretty. If only I could fucking understand how he could sleep on the ground in the goddamned desert and not even look wrinkled. If only I could love Jordan. If only I could love anyone. If only I hadn't gone with that fucking bitch in the first place. This is what I get for thinking with my dick._ _ _

__Most of it was like that, accusatory and illogical. He pretty much figured out that he was mad at himself, and not either of them. The problem was that kicking the shit out of himself was impossible, while kicking the shit out of one of them--Zillah, preferably--would be highly probable. And he had an evil feeling it would make him feel a Hell of a lot better._ _

__That bothered him most of all._ _

__About noon, they executed a dangerous and embarrassing maneuver to switch drivers without actually stopping the truck. He had to climb over Zillah, and doing so without touching him was impossible. He ended up tasting Zillah's hair for a brief and excruciating instant, and he had to touch him twice--on his leg over his knee, and on his shoulder. His fingers remembered the texture of Zillah's collarbone long after he had taken his hand away. If Zillah noticed how badly it bothered him, he didn't let on._ _

__Jordan ended up driving._ _

__He was pressed against the passenger side window, trying to physically shrink to keep from touching Zillah. He was being jostled mercilessly, and he was tired and thirsty and he could _smell_ Zillah, sand and sweat and something clean and sweet underneath it. _ _

__Zillah passed him a joint. He smoked. He tried to pass it back and discovered that they each had their own. It was extravagant, and wonderful, and he smoked the whole goddamned thing and relaxed in spite of himself. He was pressed against Zillah's right side, and he leaned his head between the window and the back of the seat and studied the fact that they seemed to be driving up a vertical desert wall._ _

__Jordan was smoking, flicking the loose ashes out the window. They had a little portable tape player between them. Both were singing along to music that he couldn't hear. So he was left out of that, too. He tried to look out of the corner of his eye, to read their lips. He wanted to figure out what song it was so he could pretend to hear it too, sing along, but he couldn't tell._ _

__He was incredibly high._ _

__He hurt. Ached. He had the urge to cry, and he gritted his teeth against it and wondered why he spent so much of his life choking emotions back, keeping words in the back of his throat, hiding what he felt. He was tired of it, but he had no idea how else to function. If he said anything, _everyone would know that he could be hurt._ And that would…well, that would just be the end._ _

__There was a strange duality to his fear of nonexistence, and this was one of the times he used it to his advantage. Sometimes, the thought that he did not actually exist was a dark comfort to him. He held that comfort close, now. He was not real, therefore this immature pain was equally unreal. He was not suffering, because he was not even there._ _

__Somehow, now, this comfort seemed thinner than it had before. He pretended otherwise. He would not believe that this final refuge had been denied him. He would force himself not to care. He would live in a reality where he no longer existed._ _

__He pretended to doze off, and stared at the vertical wall in front of them through slitted eyelids._ _

__He was tired of pretending things._ _

__He wondered if everyone else was the same way, if they were all actors, constantly improvising. He wondered if he was actually fooling anyone._ _

__(7)_ _

__

__The truck pulled into Spectre's front yard with a scrape and a whimper, much to the terror of several chickens, a duck, and a pig tied to what was left of a fence._ _

__Jordan shrieked in delight over the zoo. He scrambled out of the truck with the engine still running._ _

__He sighed, reached over Zillah and cut the ignition, pocketing the key. Zillah turned and stared at him for some damn reason, with no real expression, only something like thinly veiled amusement in his wide gray eyes. Then he slid over, climbing out with infuriating grace._ _

__He stared after Zillah, wanting to say something, anything. He missed his chance._ _

__Jordan was petting the pig, sitting on the ground, talking to it animatedly. The pig was ignoring Jordan, snuffling at the ground and making piggy noises._ _

__He sighed. He was not in the mood for farm animals, meeting strangers while dressed like a homeless Satanist, the sunlight, Zillah..._ _

__He groped in his pocket and found his sunglasses. Great. Now, after God knew how many hours in the blinding sunlight, he would find his sunglasses now. He put them on, ran his hands through his hair, tried to brush off the worst of the sand._ _

__The house was a strange mutant thing that had once been a doublewide trailer. It had been added to until it was almost unrecognizable. It sprawled out crooked and friendly, looking like the end result of an explosion in a hardware store. A handlettered sign on the front door read: WELCOME FRIENDS, in yellow paint on a scrap of plywood. He smiled a little. He liked that. It was silly, but it did make him feel welcome._ _

__Just then, the door opened. Spectre leaned out, grinning. He was a stick figure with white hair and watercolor eyes that the desert had bleached from green to a color like roots that were pinned under a rock. He wore a widebrimmed, battered straw hat with a faded loveworn rainbow scarf tied around it. --Jordan! And friends, no less. Welcome to my house. I see you met Bartholomew._ _

__\--Bartholomew is cool! Jordan said back, leaning over and pressing an enthusiastic kiss onto the top of the pig's head. --Did you just get him?_ _

__\--Someone left him with me. He's not mine, exactly, just a kind of guest for a while. Welcome, he added, looking at him and Zillah._ _

__\--Hi. Thanks, he said, waving awkwardly, just standing there. He was wondering if he should start unpacking the back of the truck. He was tremendously high. The entire scene was frayed at the edges, like a dream._ _

__\--Just leave all that. We'll get it later, Spectre said, reading his mind. --Come inside. I just made tea._ _

__Tea?_ _

__Jesus, did his entire life have to be so existential?_ _

__He smiled and nodded, and climbed the rickety wooden steps._ _

__

__Inside Spectre's house it was cool and dark. Sticks of sandalwood incense were burning in an empty Chartreuse bottle on the coffee table. There was a couch covered with a handmade quilt, and a bookcase made from packing crates, sagging under the weight of hundreds of books._ _

__He wandered over to this immediately, drawn by the bookmagnet in his head. Albert Camus. John Gardner. Foucault. Jesus, Ayn Rand and Stephen King and Clive Barker. Salman Rushdie. Poppy Z. Brite. Anton LaVey, and God only knew how Spectre had come by those, banned since the war._ _

__Jordan came in behind him, followed by Zillah and a chicken. Spectre gently maneuvered the chicken back outside, making a ridiculous noise at it. It left a feather._ _

__He picked it up. It wasn't yellow. He dropped it again, no longer interested._ _

__\--You can borrow any of those you want to, Spectre said, startling him._ _

__The, feathers? --Excuse me?_ _

__\--The books. I've read them all._ _

__\--Thanks. Thank you, he said, astonished. Maybe this Spectre really was good people. He wouldn't actually borrow any of them, of course, but somehow he knew that if he had, it would have been okay._ _

__Jordan sprawled on the couch, chattering about a dead scorpion he had found. Zillah sat down beside him, moving silent and canny like a cat, settling in with possessive closeness._ _

__He sat on the edge of an easy chair with cat scratches on the arms. He looked around, wanting to find the cat to have something to do. He liked cats anyway, but he didn't see one anywhere, and he sure as Hell wasn't going to go kitty kitty in a silly voice, for fear that the cat had been dead for a year, or something equally embarrassing._ _

__Spectre was poking around in the kitchen--a yellow sunny space that had a window in the wall looking out into the living room. A suncatcher hung there, sending tropical-bird shaped rainbows through the dark across the worn carpet. He stared at this, vaguely interested. Spectre handed him a glass with dancing dinosaurs on it. It was tea. He sniffed at it to make sure._ _

__Spectre noticed. --I only make shroom tea with orange Kool-Aid, he said, grinning. He wasn't offended, wasn't even surprised._ _

__\--Sorry, he muttered, and took a big swallow to prove it. --It's good._ _

__\--It's tea. How good could it be? Spectre smiled to clarify that this was something like a joke, nudged his shoulder lightly. That startled him. He leaned back too quickly, slopping tea down the front of his shirt. This person was acting like his friend, and no matter how hard he looked it didn't seem as though Spectre was acting._ _

__\--You know, we have a shower. With water. It's a lot less sticky than using tea to get the sand off, Spectre said._ _

__He laughed. He couldn't help it. There was light, something clear and clean and good about this strange boy._ _

__But something was wrong._ _

__Spectre was staring at him suddenly, too hard, too intently._ _

__His sunglasses had slipped down. Fuck. He pushed them back up, nervous._ _

__It was too late. He sighed, reached up and took them off, slipped the earpiece into the neck of his shirt. He looked up at Spectre, almost defiantly._ _

__Spectre didn't move for a very long time. He managed to get even paler, and he exhaled in a long startled rush. He didn't inhale._ _

__\--It's not a contact lens. Now breathe or you'll faint, he said, quietly._ _

__Silence._ _

__He didn't speak. He'd been in this silence before. Nothing he ever said was right._ _

__\--Do you want- Spectre lost it, started again. --Do you want to come out on the porch with me?_ _

__He frowned. Zillah and Jordan were kissing, oblivious. --Um, why?_ _

__\--Talk._ _

__He made a vague gesture with his shoulders. --I guess so. _This is the part where either he makes a pass at me or offers to show me his Tarot cards._ _ _

__He brought the tea with him, out of attempted politeness._ _

__The porch was screened in, with a ceiling fan spinning lazily overhead, mismatched but cushioned wicker chairs. He sat across from Spectre, sipping tea, feeling like an idiot. He had nothing to say to this stranger. He was afraid he already knew what this stranger had to say to him._ _

__Spectre was leaning forward, his eyes bright with intensity, his mouth tense. --You're him, aren't you?_ _

__\--Him who? he said, staring at the dinosaurs on his glass._ _

__\--You're the Bringer. I dreamed about you, Spectre whispered. Before you came here, before Jordan told me anything about you, before I knew you were real. I saw you. I didn't recognize you with the glasses. God, I was joking with you and everything, you must think I'm... He drew in a long, shuddering breath. --You were standing in the desert at night wearing a funeral shroud, and you raised your hands up and the sky broke apart. It's you. I always knew you would come but having faith and having you here on my porch are so _different_ \-- His voice snapped, and he stopped, blinking hard._ _

__He cleared his throat, drank again, embarrassed. --Look, I don't know who it is you think you're talking to, but you've made a mistake. I'm just a guy. I'm a friend of Jordan's. Having two different-colored eyes is a genetic defect. Lots of people have it. David Bowie had it, I think...or he got in a fight, or something….I mean, I appreciate you letting us crash here, but if I'm going to upset you this much maybe I'd better--_ _

__He was starting to stand up. He didn't know where to put his glass._ _

__Spectre stretched out his hands, stopping just short of touching him. --Please don't go. It's just hard, after years of legends and graffiti and everything. It startled me...your eyes. Don't go._ _

__He didn’t go. God, how this hurt. Every time._ _

__\--Because, you _are_ him. I know. I can see you._ _

__He froze, and--very slowly--sat down again. --I'll stay, if you don't cry, kneel, or start reciting things from Ezekiel. Okay? Is that a deal?_ _

__Spectre sniffed, smiled weakly. --Okay. Deal._ _

__He nodded. He hated this. Absolutely hated it. But he liked this boy with his chickens and his ghostcolor hair and his willingness to lend out books that were absolutely impossible to replace, and he would go through this for him._ _

__\--How do you know Jordan?_ _

__\--I...saw him. Out in the desert. You were in Mirabel, working, and someone gave him some bad shit at a party, Spectre said. --He was out of his mind, about a hundred miles from here. I just...knew he was there, and I went and got him. I had this old Fairlane at the time, and when I found him he was singing at the sky, or something. That's how we met._ _

__He nodded. That more or less agreed with what Jordan had told him, except that Jordan tended to start in the middle of a story and plunge headlong into the beginning._ _

__\--He never mentioned your eyes, Spectre added._ _

__\--What is it you need?_ _

__Spectre flinched. He was toying with the end of his rainbow scarf, and he seemed to suddenly notice he was doing it. He took off the straw hat and set it on the floor, a tangle of fidgeting and fear. --I need...you to do...what only _you_ can. But I'm afraid for you to do it._ _

___Calm. Easy. Be gentle with this boy. He lives half-here and half in dreamtime, and ghosts are as real to him as you are. Don't hurt him._ _ _

__\--Confess you, you mean, he said. --Because you don't need physical healing. It has to be psychological, whatever it is._ _

__\--Yes. That. Please. I've been...carrying something for years..._ _

__\--What kind of thing could you have possibly have done that is so terrible? he asked, not to be sarcastic, absolutely serious. He saw no darkness, no guilt in this boy._ _

__Spectre leaned back in his chair, his shoulders drawn in, his arms folded tight. He was looking at the floor, with his hair hanging in his face. --It's not what I did. It's something that I didn't do._ _

__God, he hated this. But he liked it too, missed doing it. He was enjoying the old patterns clicking into place, the familiar mindset, the words on his lips before he even had to consider them. He felt like a transmitter. His identity had fallen away like the dead skin it really was. --You won't like this, he warned. It would be the only warning._ _

__\--I know, Spectre said._ _

__\--Uncross your arms. Look me in the eye. No matter what, you don't look away, he said. The words were blunt, but he made his voice as gentle as he could._ _

__Spectre nodded, and obeyed._ _

__\--Start with your real name._ _

__\--John, Spectre whispered._ _

__\--Keep going, John._ _

__Spectre did. --I was ten years old when it happened. My mother...she ran this safehouse. She was so good at it. She could cook like crazy, and she loved everybody, just everybody. It didn't matter who you were or how dirty you were, if you didn't have anything to give back. She made everybody feel welcome. She would hug them first, the minute they came into the door. And she'd say, _welcome home.__ _

__\--What was her name, John?_ _

__\--Elizabeth. Spectre drew in a deep breath, bracing himself. --One night there were these two men, horrible people. I could see how bad they were, and I tried to tell her. She said, _hush, John. They're people, too._ Only they weren't, they were machines made out of meat and they were selfish and hungry and empty, and she wouldn't listen! Why wouldn't she fucking just listen! I was just a kid, but she knew I wasn't stupid!_ _

__He closed his eyes, briefly. It was more or less the story he had expected to hear, nothing new under the sun. It was no less horrible for being redundant._ _

__\--And after I went to bed, I heard her scream. Spectre was crying, in the strange calm way that only happened when you opened a very old wound that you hadn't even admitted you had. --I came out. I saw what was happening, I was in the dining room, the one just outside the bedroom. Mary was just a little kid--and I could hear her crying but I couldn't go to her, and I saw. And I hid. I hid under the table and I watched, and I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything._ _

__\--You were ten, he said, very softly._ _

__\--I was _all she had,_ Spectre snapped back, nearly shouting. --I knew where the fuck the gun was! And I laid there in the floor and cried and covered up my ears!_ _

__\--Come here, he said._ _

__Spectre wasn't ready to hear that yet. --You know the worst part? She got pregnant. And it killed her. I was trying to help her, and she bled to death, and the baby died after about a minute. It was too small. It didn't even have fingernails._ _

__\--Come here, he said again, pulling Spectre back from the edge of Hell with the power of his eyes._ _

__Spectre tried to, fell to his knees._ _

__He pulled the boy closer, and Spectre had his head in his lap, sobbing. He let him cry. It was about time. The tears had come quickly, and that was good, because this kind of psychic surgery--a combination of confession, exorcism, and amputation--was easier once you were beyond the breaking point._ _

__Afterwards they were both just sitting there, the silence broken by Spectre's hitching every few minutes, and even that was getting fainter, less violent._ _

__\--Let me tell you another story, he said, when Spectre was ready to hear it. --Once upon a time, there was a woman named Elizabeth. She had a son named John, who she loved more than anything on earth._ _

__Spectre was sitting on the floor still, still resting his head on his knee._ _

__He was stroking Spectre's ghostwhite hair, very gently, and he kept his voice pitched to rhythms that held the boy there, that made him listen. --She ran a safehouse, in the middle of the desert, and she welcomed everyone into her home, without prejudice, with so much love that it spilled out of her eyes, glittered in her hands. And one night, she was hurt, very badly, by two lost souls who had forgotten how to understand love._ _

__\--That night was the beginning of the end of her life. She died. She left behind hundreds of people who had a memory of someone beautiful who made them feel like they belonged somewhere. And some of those people started safehouses of their own. One of them was her son. And he carried inside him all the love that everyone is born with. What made him different, made him special, was that his mother had taught him how to _give_ that love away. What made him pure was that the evil that happened didn't make him bitter. He came through it, wounded, but still the kind of person that would paint _welcome friends_ outside his house in yellow paint._ _

__Spectre's body unwound, then, and he cried again, very softly, the kind of clean tears that emptied out all the darkness. He managed to get back into his chair. He covered his face with his hands, soundless. You could almost hear the edges of the wound knitting together._ _

__(8)_ _

__

__\--Do you feel better? he asked him, after he was sure he had waited long enough not to be interrupting Spectre's rebuilding._ _

__\--Yeah. I think so. Tired, and sort of hurting, but I think I can heal, now. Thank-_ _

__\--Don't, he said, and said it again, more quietly. --Don't thank me._ _

__Spectre uncovered his face, stared at him for a long time. He understood it, then, and smiled. --I won't. But you won't...Spectre paused, uncertain of what he was asking.  
\--You won't tell anyone, that I cried like that, that I was--_ _

__\--Tell anyone what?_ _

__The look Spectre was so grateful that it made him sick to be what he was, tired and disgusted and even a little suicidal._ _

__Jordan poked his head in. --Are you guys done?_ _

__\--Are you? Spectre countered, before he could answer._ _

__Zillah was in the living room, out of sight, laughing at that one. --Quite, he called. --We're smoking. You're missing out._ _

__And then, there was a new voice. A girl's voice, from the back of the house. --John?_ _

__\--Shit, Spectre muttered, and got up and hurried into the back._ _

__\--Who is that? he asked Jordan. _Danger._ He was tired, so fucking tired, and he just wanted to find a bed somewhere and sleep for days. _ _

__\--Some girl. Who knows. Come back in. We're smoking, he said. Zillah was already dragging him back inside._ _

__\--In a minute, he said, lying. He didn't want any more. Of anything._ _

__He sat out there alone. Picked up Spectre's hat. Put it on, took it off again, and set it back down. Dug in his pocket until he found the little cellophane with four hits of acid, and ate two of them. It was more of a reflex than an actual decision to trip. He was distantly sorry once he had taken them. It was too damn late now. Outer space, dead ahead._ _

__\--Hi._ _

__He nearly climbed out of his skin._ _

__She was standing right there, and he hadn't even heard her footsteps._ _

__A girl. A girl that made his mouth go dry and his lungs malfunction and his brain go blank._ _

__She was wearing a worn terry-cloth bathrobe that had once been white. Her hair was long and black, like his, clinging wet to her collar. She had an angel's face, and her fingernails were short and pretty, painted black. She smiled at him, standing there slim and new like a hallucination._ _

__He tried to say _hi_ back and managed the "h" noise. He tried smiling instead, and it felt all wrong, but he couldn't remember how to quit._ _

__\--Are you okay? she asked him. God her voice, low and sweet and gentle. She had such dark eyes. She was Byzantine. He was afraid of her._ _

__\--I just dropped two hits, he said, as either small talk or an excuse for his idiotic behavior. He made a mental note to find a brick wall as soon as possible and smack his forehead into it repeatedly._ _

__She let go of the neck of her robe. It only gave him a glimpse of her collarbone. It was enough to crisp any functioning synapses he had left. And then, God, she _posed_ for him, stepped back and poised her hands like a dancer, moved them in slow underwater shapes, still smiling. --Is it working yet?_ _

___No, which means I probably only have about forty-five minutes to live. If I could see trails of you doing that it would snap my spine._ \--That's beautiful, he said. He amended _smack repeatedly_ to _smack very hard repeatedly.__ _

__\--I'm Mary. I'm John's cousin._ _

__\--You can't be more than sixteen, he blurted out. Jesus, he was really doing an excellent fucking job today. Such subtle, charming dialogue._ _

__\--I'll be seventeen in two months._ _

__\--Oh, he said. Mary. The kid who had been crying during Elizabeth's rape. That made sense. He could see Spectre in her face, in her cheekbones and the set of her mouth, even though their coloring was so different. Both angels. Both terrible in their singularity._ _

__\--I have two more. Hits, I mean. Do you want them? he said. There was a kind of drug protocol, where you offered when you had the stuff to offer, period. Because if they didn't help each other, nobody would help them at all._ _

__She stepped closer. Her feet were bare, and her toenails were painted black, and a silver chain was around her right ankle with a tiny charm hanging from it, a Greek letter. _Like a deer, that's what she's like, that's how she moves, like a deer. What the Hell is this happening inside my chest?__ _

__He unwrapped them, and she opened her mouth like someone waiting to take communion. His fingertip brushed her tongue. Wet silk. He set the paper there, his hand shaking, so aroused that his spine was trying to rearrange itself. --If you bite it, you'll go to Hell, he said._ _

__\--Which? The acid, or your finger? she asked, her voice slightly muffled. His fingertip was resting on her bottom lip. He couldn't remember how to move it._ _

__\--The acid. You know, body of Christ and all that._ _

__She grinned. Mischief. He would have to be careful around her. --Would I go to Hell if I bit your finger, too?_ _

__\--No, he said. He had lost control of this joke with stunning speed._ _

__\--Well, what would happen?_ _

__He drew his fingertip down her chin, tapped the tip of her nose. Her skin was like expensive paper, smooth and fragile and vicious. _Jesus, stop it, you idiot!_ He thought about it. --I guess...I...would...cry? _ _

__She raised her eyebrow at him. He tensed, expecting her to bite him. She stepped back reflex-quick, sat in the chair Spectre had abandoned. He still had his hand in the air, like a mime. Someone in the living room--Jordan, probably--made a silly whooing noise, followed by an explosion of giggles in stereo._ _

__\--I think about Hell a lot. What do you think it's like? she asked him, with no hint of illusion or mockery in her voice. Just curiosity. A coed, with the professor all to herself, and she knew just where to needle him. Philosophy._ _

__\--Hmmm. You know, I have this rebellious streak. I used to think I wouldn't give much of a damn about a lake of fire. I figured you can adapt to any level of pain, since you couldn't die from it. Then, I wondered if Hell might not be a little more clever than that. Maybe it's subjective. Maybe it does to you the one thing you could never adapt to._ _

__Her eyes widened. She was actually listening to his prattling, and she was either interested or a very good actress. --Like what?_ _

__\--It would depend on you. Mine would be too easy. Just to be locked up in a cell. Alone. For eternity._ _

__\--You could go insane. Fill your cell with the ghosts of Napoleon and Elvis, she said._ _

__He laughed. --Or Jim Morrison. The conversation would be better, he said. She was quick, and her mind moved in directions he liked. --I don't think you'd be able to go insane, though. It would be worth a try. Or maybe going insane is Hell. I don't know._ _

__A crash from the living room. More giggles. --Do you want to go inside? she asked him._ _

__\--Do you?_ _

__They looked at each other for a minute._ _

__She said, --No._ _

__\--Can I ask you, why do you think about Hell, and not heaven?_ _

__She didn't smile at that one. --Because...I think heaven would be worse than Hell ever could be. Did you bite yours?_ _

__He followed that one. He didn't smile either. --I chewed it. I always chew it, he said._ _

__She considered that, and made a big show of pushing the acid around in her mouth and chewing it up. --Then I guess I'll see you in Hell! she said, triumphant._ _

__It damn near killed him. --You won. I surrender, he said, still laughing, his teeth beginning to ache from the LSD._ _

__She made a gun out of her hand and blew away imaginary smoke, holstered it in an invisible gunbelt._ _

__\--I like you, he said. --Sorry. That was totally a weird thing to say. It's the trip._ _

__\--I like you too, she said. --Why would that be weird? You want weird? How about this: you don't have to apologize to me. For anything. Ever again._ _

__That got him, hard and quick like a blow, deep in the pit of his stomach._ _

__\--Oh, he said._ _

__Then, they were both quiet, with invisible things moving between them._ _

__They both moved to get up at the same time. He stood first, held out his hand to her. She took it. And she took his sunglasses from the collar of his shirt, and put them on herself. They looked damn good on her, he noticed, with resentment and delight._ _

__\--I like your eyes, she told him, over her shoulder._ _

__(9)_ _

__

__They sat in the living room on the couch, too close to one another. It was early evening. Jordan was sitting in the floor, with Zillah's head in his lap. Spectre was in the chair, playing an antique guitar and singing an old Led Zeppelin song very softly, mimicking under his breath the guitar sounds he couldn't play. They didn't really talk, except when Mary asked him if he wanted a drink. He said yes, and she brought him rum and coke without needing to ask what he liked. The scary thing was that he wasn't surprised that she knew. An even scarier thing was how easy it was to feel her next to him, how warm she was, how badly he wanted to lean his head on her shoulder._ _

__Their hands kept tangling together, and he got halfway into a conversation about changing from major to minor with Spectre when he realized he had his hand on her leg. He turned to her, horrified, already apologizing, and she laughed at him, took his hand and held it again._ _

__The trip was rolling along pretty quickly. The room had taken on a greenish quality, like sunlight drifting down into a rainforest, and was swaying gently._ _

__Finally, Spectre told him, --Can you come in the kitchen and help me roll a joint?_ _

__That was obviously total bullshit. He got up anyway. Mary clung to his hand, briefly, tripdazed and thinking he was leaving the house. --I'm going in the kitchen. I'll be right back, he whispered to her._ _

__She kissed his fingers, igniting his entire arm. --Okay, she whispered back, and let him go. Well, she said either that or _hurry._ He thought about asking her and decided they amounted to about the same thing, anyway._ _

__He made it into the kitchen without falling over anything._ _

__Spectre already had a joint in progress. --I'm not mad. Believe me. But if she's going to be yours, take care of her._ _

__It had that crystalline clarity that acid lent to things, those words. He immediately perceived their entire meaning, the future he was suddenly going to be a part of. He was grinning again. --I will. I swear to you. She's--_ _

__\--I know. She doesn't know. About you. She has no idea. She's never been anywhere to hear the legend._ _

__\--I don't think she can know._ _

__\--Just try... Spectre started over. --I mean, try and keep her from as much of the pain as you can. You know?_ _

__\--Nothing is ever going to hurt her, he said, with that animal ferocity that sometimes happened. --Never. Not ever._ _

__\--Not even You?_ _

__He didn't like the magic those words made. --No, he said. He wasn't sure._ _

__\--And there's another problem, Spectre said, blowing smoke through his teeth. --Ask her about where she lives when you both come down a little._ _

__That made his insides cold. --Where? He hit the joint too hard, too deep, making his lungs burn._ _

__\--Ever heard of a township called Calvary?_ _

__He didn't answer._ _

__He went back into the living room, back to her, almost running. She saw his face, and stood up, her hands out. --What happened? Is he mad? I'll _kill_ him._ _

__\--He's not mad. Let's go outside. Please, he said, pulling her towards the door._ _

__

__The dream: he was looking at himself. The other him was naked, and he was taking off his clothes to give them to himself. And the new him, the real him smiled, and kissed him with icy lips, and put took his hands and put them around this perfect copy of his throat, and whispered, _it's not murder. you were never real anyway.__ _

__There was a mirror, and he was looking over the real him's shoulder, and he could only see a single reflection, and he had his own hands around his own throat, and he couldn't stop, couldn't breathe, couldn't_ _

__Mary was shaking him hard, screaming for Spectre._ _

__Spectre and Zillah were hurting him, pinning him to the ground, kneeling on his arms to keep them spread out. He drew in his breath and_ _

__\--Hey._ _

__He was sitting on the front steps of Spectre's house, with Mary beside him. She had just stepped out the door and sat down, he realized. All those things had been a hallucination and had only taken an instant._ _

__\--Was I just staring off into space? he asked her, terrified._ _

__\--You stopped in the middle of a word. She laid her hand on his cheek. --Are you okay?_ _

__\--I think I'm going into a bad trip. God. I need help, I need--_ _

__She took his hand, put his finger in her mouth, and bit it. Hard. He snatched his hand away, which hurt even more. He stared at her as if she'd grown a second head._ _

__\--You didn't cry, you liar, she said softly, took his hand and kissed his bitten finger. --Better?_ _

__He opened his mouth to say no, and realized he was better, except that his finger hurt. The dark doorway he had stumbled into was closed and locked again._ _

__\--Yeah. Better._ _

__He took her hand and bit her back. Hard. She squealed, flailed at him with her other hand, and fell off the steps, dragging him with her._ _

__\--You know we're probably lying in chicken shit, he gasped out, still laughing._ _

__\--Yeah._ _

__\--If you ever bite me again I'll hold you upside down till you puke._ _

__She bit him again, on the side of his hand, before she scrambled to her feet and ran._ _

__He sat back on the steps, discovered he was holding Spectre's joint, relit it._ _

__She came back, four drags later, panting. He held it out to her with a perfectly straight face. She fell for it, reaching out her hand. Then he had her. He grabbed her around the waist. She screamed so loud that by the time he got her upside down, Spectre and Jordan were watching._ _

__He carried her inside and deposited her on the couch. His hands were burning, physically burning from the soft illegal feel of her flesh under the terry cloth. He had been careful to keep her modesty intact. She rearranged her bathrobe anyway, giggling, blushing._ _

__He wondered, if anyone had played with her, since she was small. She looked like she'd needed it._ _

__\--I said you could date her, not bash her head in, Spectre told him, laughing._ _

__He mimicked bashing her head in with some kind of pseudo-kung fu punch, making her cringe and giggle again. --She'll live, he said back to Spectre. He didn't take his eyes off her. --Did I win that one? he asked her._ _

__\--No, she said, pretending irritation. He made as if to lunge at her again. --Okay! Okay, yes you won!_ _

__They were tied. He sat down beside her again, said very casually, --What do you think of Nietzsche?_ _

__

__(10)_ _

__

__He woke up in the kind of bone-deep pain that always followed a trip. He was lying on the couch, covered up with the quilt, with two pillows crumpled under him. He groaned. Stretched. It didn't really help. It just moved the pain around._ _

__Someone was moving around in the kitchen. He knew it was her before she even came out. She had showered again. Long sleeveless black dress with red rhinestone buttons. She handed him orange juice in the dinosaur glass, and set a plate on the coffee table in front of him. Breakfast. Eggs, toast, bacon, everything. And a fork. Jesus. He could barely sit up, and she was up cooking._ _

__\--I know you're hurting. I can tell by the way you're walking. I can't believe you made me breakfast. You must be insane. He drank half the glass of juice at once. --Thank you. Why do you live in Calvary?_ _

__\--Good morning to you, too. Do you always have six conversations at once?_ _

__\--Usually. So tell me why._ _

__She ran her hand through her hair. --I live there because...it's my home._ _

__\--Why don't you live here?_ _

__\--Because it isn't a good idea for a sixteen year old girl to live in a safehouse. You guys are nice. Not everybody who comes here is, and Spectre couldn't take four guys. He probably couldn't take even one. He's not violent. It's not in him._ _

___And his mother was raped in front of his eyes when he was ten, running this safehouse, until yesterday he hated himself for hiding instead of trying to pull some John Wayne shit and getting himself killed._ _ _

___No wonder he doesn't want you here._ _ _

___Do you have to be so beautiful and live in fucking Cavalry?_ _ _

__It was the worst town anyone knew of. It was a dictatorship, and it was incredibly repressed. And there was no jail. There was a holding cell where you waited for your execution._ _

__\--Why are you here now? he asked her._ _

__\--Spectre lets me come around and get a break from town whenever it's slow. I guess he knew you guys were okay._ _

__\--Why Calvary? I just...I hate to keep asking that._ _

__\--Dad left me a house there. The town wasn't as bad when he was alive, but once Aaron took over...It's a trailer, really. It's...it's somewhere to live, she said, flustered._ _

__\--Aaron? he asked._ _

__\--I can't afford to move the trailer. I don't even think it could be moved. It would fall apart. It's ancient. It's from 1970 or so, and I can't keep it up the way he used to._ _

__\--What needs doing?_ _

__\--What doesn't?_ _

__\--Well, I'll help you._ _

__\--She stared at him, looking almost offended. --Why?_ _

__He thought about that. --I...I don't know. I just want to, he said._ _

__She stared at him for a long time, the pride leaving her mouth and her eyes,. --I don't think you should ever set foot in Calvary._ _

__\--Why not?_ _

__She was sitting beside him. He had taken off his shirt at some point. She could see the scars. She was pretending not to._ _

__He never let anyone see them. Not even Jordan._ _

__She reached out, smoothed his hair away from his face. --Your eyes. They'll hate you for those eyes._ _

__So she'd heard the fucking legend, somewhere. _Those, eyes._ He knew she was talking about more than just the colors. --You could give me back my sunglasses, he said quietly._ _

__\--Your hair._ _

__\--I pull it back, usually._ _

__\--And these? She took him by the wrist, showing him the tattoos that covered his arms, strange eyes, dark twisted faces._ _

__\--Long sleeves, he said. He couldn't even remember where he'd gotten the tattoos, or when, or why._ _

__\--In the desert in the middle of the summer?_ _

__He only looked at her, and said, --Mary, I'm not going to let you win this one._ _

__\--I don't want you to go into town to work on that damn house. I want you to go into town to see _me,_ she blurted out. She got up what looked adorably like a fit of teenage humiliation, fled into the kitchen. He knew better than to follow her. He picked up his plate, and concentrated on eating. It wasn't hard--he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually had food that was cooked by someone who knew how. _ _

__She came back with a plate of her own, not looking at him, not speaking to him._ _

__\--I'm too old for you, he said, still looking at the eggs on his plate as though he were mesmerized. _I want this so bad that when I finally manage to talk both of us out of it, I will probably die.__ _

__\--How old are you?_ _

__\--Twenty-eight. A guess. Almost random._ _

__\--My mother was fifteen when she had me._ _

__\--You don't understand what my life is like._ _

__\--Well, maybe I would like to understand, she snapped, and set her plate down too hard._ _

__\--All right, he said quietly._ _

__She had opened her mouth to counter his argument. --All right?_ _

__He stared at the dinosaurs on his glass. --If you want me to come and see you, I'll come._ _

__\--Okay, she whispered. --When?_ _

__\--When do you leave?_ _

__\--Tonight. It's safer to walk in the dark._ _

__\--How far is it?_ _

__\--Um. About an hour._ _

__\--I'll drive you._ _

__She shook her head, looking frightened. --If they saw you in my house at night--_ _

__\--They won't, he promised. --I'll drop you off._ _

__\--There's a...revival, tomorrow, and maybe you could go to that. It would look better if we were out in public._ _

__A revival. Now _there_ was number two or so on his top-ten list of things he had absolutely NO desire to do. Number one was self-castration with a rusty spoon._ _

__But she was right. Morally, socially, whatever, it probably would look better._ _

__\--I'll be there, he told her._ _

__\--What do you do?_ _

__He looked up at her again. --Excuse me?_ _

__\--I mean, what do you usually do? Work? Or music, or something? I just wondered, if you were...an artist... She stopped herself._ _

__\--No. I'm not an artist. I can nail wood together without breaking my fingers. I can play a guitar slightly better than most house cats. I tell stories, he said._ _

__\--Will you tell me one?_ _

__\--Yes. Later. You have to give me time to think of one._ _

__\--Don't you already have some?_ _

__He gave her a smile that he didn't like the feel of. --I only use them once. Which finger did I bite?_ _

__She blinked, caught up to that, and showed him._ _

__He brought her hand to his mouth, and kissed it lightly. --I forgot to do that last night, he said, and kept hold of her hand too long._ _

__

__\--I think she likes you._ _

__\--What? he said, distracted, watching Mary trying to feed the chickens without falling over any of them._ _

__\--She likes you. A lot. She stares at you. Sort of like you're staring at her now, Jordan said._ _

__\--Oh. He shrugged, dropping into his pretending again. --She's cute, but it won't work. She's too young, and I can't live in....that, town._ _

__\--So take her with us, Jordan suggested, brightly._ _

__\--Where?_ _

__\--The _Sanctuary._ Remember?_ _

__He sighed. --I remember. Believe me. How could I forget with you harping in my ear about it all the time? He shoved Jordan off the steps, to show that he was kidding._ _

__

__He wanted to take her home, because he would get to be with her. He didn't want to take her home, because that was one less day he would have to spend with her, and he was pretty sure those days were few in number._ _

__The sun didn't give a damn what he wanted; it went from east to west like always, When it was a pink gleam on the horizon, he went into the kitchen where she was drying dishes. --When should we go?_ _

__She set down the plate she was working on. --Not yet. Her voice was too stretched for it to be convincing. She didn't turn around._ _

__He raised his hand, standing behind her, hesitated. --Is it okay if I touch you?_ _

__\--Don't hurt me._ _

__He would find and kill the man that made her ask that. He put his hand on her shoulder, slid it to the back of her neck under her hair._ _

__Quiet. And problems with his throat. --I won't. Not ever._ _

__She sighed. Every muscle in her body seemed to unfold._ _

__He put both hands on her shoulders. She was so small, a miracle, perfect. He ran his hands down her arms, touching her with the backs of his fingers, his palms, very lightly. She made a slight motion, as if she had drawn in a deep breath very quickly. He stepped closer to her, leaned down and licked at her hair, inhaling her, moved her hair over her shoulder and pressed a single kiss to the back of her neck. He wrapped his arms around her--carefully, not wanting to brush against her breasts and scare her--and whispered, --I like you._ _

__Her hands came up, closed around his. --I like you, too._ _

__\--We should go, he said, not moving._ _

__\--Is it safe? she said, tiny._ _

__\--Is anything?_ _

__

__(11)_ _

__

__The truck, for some unknown reason, actually started. He fibbed and told Mary that it still wouldn't go past first, when he knew it probably would. He wanted this drive to take as long as possible._ _

__She put her hand on his knee, nearly causing him to destroy the transmission. --Where's my story?_ _

__The story his brain had come up with at his request wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. It usually worked that way. He had to use it, though. It was the only one he had._ _

__\--It's a weird story._ _

__\--I want to hear it, she said, using that evil, coaxing, liquid tone of voice that only women had. Now he understood why Van Gogh had cut off his ear. Some girl had used that voice to say, _please, dearest?__ _

__\--Once upon a time on a planet in another galaxy, there was a race of beings called the Mi'kaar. They were kind of like purple monkeys with four eyes. They lived in platforms that they built in trees that were hundreds of feet high. They built most of the houses right near the top of the tree, because that was where the fruit grew. That was the only food on their entire planet._ _

__He paused, thinking. --There was enough fruit for all of them. They didn't have wars. They didn't really have rules. They just ate, and slept, and made love, and looked up at the stars and wondered what they were, and whether or not they would ever fall so they could look at one up close._ _

__She blushed at the making love part. She also, incidentally, still had her hand on his knee. He wondered if she knew enough about stick shifts to call him on it if he ground the gears on purpose to make a scary noise and stop the car._ _

___No. Sixteen. Quit it, brain._ _ _

__\--One day, one of them fell out of the tree. He didn't die or anything. He just landed on the ground. He was scared to death. The ground didn't sway in the wind, and he was all alone down there. He cried, and he yelled and yelled until they heard him._ _

__\--Some of them said, we can't help you. We might fall down there, too. And some of them tried using branches. Nothing was long enough for him to reach. They invented knots. They tied branches together and made a ladder. Except that it broke, and four more of them fell._ _

__\--Finally, they gave up. They just dropped fruit, and leaves for beds, and they talked to each other, shouting back and forth. That went on for about a year, Earth time._ _

__She smiled at that. He smiled back, thinking, _God, not only did she understand that, she appreciated it.__ _

__\--After a while, they didn't talk to each other as much. And then they didn't talk at all. The Upperdwellers still dropped fruit and leaves, but they did it at night._ _

__\--Years went by. The Lowerdwellers had children, and the Upperdwellers had children. And their children had children. And one day, they didn't drop any fruit. And they didn't drop any the next day, or the next._ _

__\--The Lowerdwellers finally started shouting up at the Uppers. They said, you have to give us food! We are starving! And the Uppers said back, We can't give you any. There are too many of us. We will starve. And besides, you don't deserve any food._ _

__He paused, letting her put all that together. She thought about it, and nodded._ _

__\--The Lowers said, what do you mean? We don't understand._ _

__\--And the Uppers said, we have figured out those shiny things. We call them gods. And they made you live down there away from them because they don't like you, because you are all bad people. We live up here near them, where there is food, because we are their chosen people. We won't feed you, any more, because our gods wouldn't like it._ _

__\--Did they starve? she asked, quietly._ _

__He shook his head. --They invented fire._ _

__She made some little noise at that, looking out the windshield at the blue dunes._ _

__\--And they burned down every single one of the trees. And they ate all the fruit that was left, and then they ate the bodies of the dead Upperdwellers. And then they invented war, and for a while, they ate each other. And finally, the last ones starved, on a world that was empty. And the stars are looking down at their wasteland, right now._ _

__He looked at her, still driving. --Do you still want to understand what my life is like?_ _

__\--I do understand, now, she said._ _

__Silence, the sound of the engine._ _

__\--I wish...she began._ _

__He waited, and then prompted, --You wish what?_ _

__\--I just wish you would do it again, what you did in the kitchen. When you just...had your arms around me. I liked that. It made everything...better, somehow._ _

__He stopped the truck._ _

__Turned off the ignition. Turned off the headlights._ _

__She took her hand off his knee, scooted over against the passenger side door, staring at him with her eyes wide and scared. --You said you wouldn't hurt me-- Pleading. Shaking._ _

__\--Oh, God, Mar, no, no. I'm not going to hurt you. Shhh, he said, reflex moving his hands towards her, caution making him pull away from her again. --It's okay._ _

__Her hand had been on the handle of the door. She had been ready to run, out into the night, out into the desert. Away from him. Afraid of him._ _

__\--Please don't. Please don't ever be afraid of me. Please, he told her, begging her. He held out his hands again. She took them, trembling like she was cold._ _

__\--I just...don't know what you expect of me. I've never...even...I don't even know any guys. When you...kissed my neck, she said, looking down, away from his eyes, --The only other man who has ever kissed me is Spectre, and he kisses the top of my head, and that's not the same, and I felt so...I didn't want you to stop, and--_ _

__He put his fingertips on her mouth._ _

__She stopped._ _

__He started to say something, anything, and instead he leaned over and kissed her. She tried to back up, and he cupped her chin and kept the fingers of his free hand wound in hers. It was awkward and gentle and she had her eyes open, her eyelashes brushing his face, her lips soft and startled._ _

___...sixteen sixteen sixteen stop okay stop okay STOP_ __

__He stopped, long before he wanted to._ _

__\--Surprise._ _

__\--You win, she said, sounding faded and weak._ _

__\--So kiss me back, and we'll be even._ _

__She did, missing a little and hitting the corner of his mouth, and he moved her head and kissed her harder, still carefully._ _

__This time, he had to stop her. --We have to go._ _

__\--Okay. She moved back, went to touch her mouth, and didn't. She gave him a crooked smile._ _

__And the truck didn't start. Didn't even turn over. Click, and that was all. Just click._ _

__

__Swearing didn't work. Turning the headlights on and off didn't work. Popping the hood open (loud embarrassing creak) and poking aimlessly at the truck's insides didn't work either. That was pretty much the limit of his automotive knowledge. And it was almost completely dark, now._ _

__\--Whore, he muttered finally, forced the hood closed, and aimed an immature kick at the left front tire. --How much farther is it? he called to Mary._ _

__\--About a mile, she said. She was sitting on the tailgate, swinging her feet. She had giggled at him twice, due to profanity so infuriated it was incoherent. She didn't seem angry. He was dying of humiliation._ _

__He leaned back in, put it in neutral. --I'm going to push this fucker. Get in, he told her._ _

__\--You can't, she said, jumping down. --Not in sand._ _

__\--I can too, he said, and thought _or my ego will collapse and perish._ \--Get in. _ _

__She did._ _

__He managed about twenty feet before something incredibly painful happened to his back, and he stumbled down onto one knee, hissing through his teeth._ _

__She hopped out, damn near running. --Are you okay? What happened?_ _

__\--Ow, he told her, intelligently. Then, --I can't possibly push this thing anywhere._ _

__\--It was sweet of you to try, she offered._ _

__\--It was traumatically stupid for me to try, he said, groping around until he managed to sit down._ _

__She pushed him forward, pulled up the back of his shirt._ _

__He got as far as --Jesus, don't. Then her hands were on his back. He bit his bottom lip and didn't say a word._ _

__He squirmed for her to stop after a few minutes. He could _not_ take that anymore, those small soft sweet-sixteen hands, being so gentle, knowing just where the pain was the worst._ _

__He stood up, taking her hands, doing the pulling himself. It hurt like Hell. It hurt so much that a yellow arc spun across his vision,. He staggered. She put her arm around his waist, steadying him. --Can you make it, or do you want to sleep here? Or I could go back for Jordan--_ _

__\--No. I can make it, he insisted._ _

__They started walking. He let her help him, partly because he was in agony, and partly because it was nice to have her that close to him, to have an excuse to touch her._ _

__\--I can't do this. I'll get you in trouble, he said, after a long while._ _

__\--I live almost outside of town. My dad managed to move it that much when it started getting bad, she said. --You should have seen it. Six horses and two tractors pulling it._ _

__\--Still._ _

__\--As long as we don't have the truck, they won't have the sound of an engine to get nosy about, she pointed out. --Just don't sing at the top of your lungs, and we'll be fine._ _

__\--So much for my plan. I was going to serenade you with Metallica, he told her._ _

__She laughed. He had noticed a strange new tendency in himself to deliberately say things just to hear the sound of that laugh. Even silly things._ _

__\--I have morphine at the house, she offered._ _

__\--Ooh, Jesus. I might have to take you up on that, he said. He was having a completely inappropriate discussion with himself about whether it was a good thing that his back was destroyed, because he couldn't try anything, or a bad thing, because he couldn't try anything. _Sixteen,_ he told himself again, very firmly this time. She smelled like, Heaven. Why had that sixteen thing been important again?_ _

__\--It's not much farther. Ten minutes, she said._ _

__\--Don't you feel kind of like you've fallen into a bad screenplay? Boy's car breaks down. Boy goes to girl's house._ _

__\--There's no axe murderer in this screenplay, is there?_ _

__He tried not to laugh. God, she was smart. Funny. Quick. Damn near dragging him along. --If there is, you'll have to fight him. I'll just lay wherever you drop me and whine._ _

__\--Will you scream and act distressed?_ _

__\--Absolutely._ _

__\--Deal, she told him._ _

__

__Mary's trailer looked like a space capsule. It was a pill-shaped aluminum thing that had once been silver, with the windows that opened out into slats with a crank. It was tiny, about thirty feet long, if that. Still, the steps in front of it were swept and painted, and the sand was raked smooth. The little cacti that sometimes produced bulbous pink alien flowers were growing in a windowbox at the end, and there was an amateur rock garden on the ground underneath it, a half-circle of carefully arranged gravel and shells._ _

__He had a dizzy vision of a jerry-rigged swingset beside that, in blinding sunlight, with two little girls with long dark hair swinging and singing a rhyme about a man from Leeds, and laughing. And one of them had Mary's cheekbones and the other had his mismatched eyes. He could still see the night through the hallucination, and he knew it was only a thing that might be, a ghost of a possible future. Or an impossible future._ _

__She went up the stairs in front of him, and opened the door without a key. He followed her in._ _

__\--Don't move. Hang on, she told him. He stood there in the darkness with one hand pressed to his back, surrounded by the shadows of unfamiliar shapes and the smell of lilies and mildew and something else that was just her smell, the smell of her dwelling place, of the place where she slept and cried and ate and showered and read books and lived._ _

__He was certain he shouldn't be there._ _

__The flash of a match, then an orange flickering glow. She had lit a kerosene lamp. She turned the flame up, and the trailer brightened. --No electricity at night, unless it's an emergency. It's the law. And I don't have any light bulbs, anyway, she explained._ _

__To the right was a little place that had probably once held a booth as a table. Strips of the floor were bare wood here, framed by peeling tile, and she had replaced whatever she had ripped out there with a little dressing table with a round mirror. Just across from that was a little phone-booth kitchen, and a door left of that that was probably a bathroom._ _

__The left side of the house was the bedroom. A sagging bed devoured most of the space. It was neatly made with a blanket patterned with faded pink roses and a small mountain of mismatched pillows. There were little figurines here and there, of unicorns and angels and dragons, and curtains on the tiny windows. Everything was impeccably clean, even things so worn they had become the same color as the desert._ _

__\--I know it's awful, she said, setting the lamp on the tiny counterspace beside the kitchen sink._ _

__\--It's not awful. It's like a nest. Like a home, a real home, he said, and meant it. He liked it. It was exactly like her--a lot better than it had to be._ _

__The problem was that he had to sit down, or fall down. Soon._ _

__\--Mary--_ _

__\--Oh, God. I'm sorry. Come here, she said, and maneuvered him over to the bed. He collapsed, gratefully. There was an ivory slip lying across the pillows. She snatched it, blushing, and stuffed it into a crumbling dresser wedged into a corner beside the bathroom. There was a black lace scarf covering the top of it, spread with a collection of jewelry boxes and a ceramic unicorn and a half-empty bottle of red wine._ _

__She poked around in the jewelry box and handed him two blue pills, and the wine bottle. --Are these your last two? he asked her._ _

__\--No, she said, lying. --Take them._ _

__He couldn't argue. He took them, and she went into the kitchen, seeming uncomfortable, or something. He tried to read her mind, and what he saw there made him a little amused and a little sad. --If you give me time for these to kick in, I'll go back to the truck, he told her._ _

__She turned to him, trying to look confused and only succeeding in looking guilty. --Why?_ _

__\--Mar. We can _not_ both sleep here._ _

__\--You're not going back to the truck. And that's _it,_ she said. _ _

__Well. He was impressed. He fully expected her to punch him in the jaw if he so much as twitched in the direction of the door._ _

__\--I've got a sleeping bag. I'll sleep over here in the kitchen, she said._ _

__\--I'll sleep over there, he told her._ _

__\--No._ _

__Deadlock. He thought about it. --We could both sleep over here._ _

__Her face went very still. He had to grind his teeth to keep from grinning. --I'll sleep in the sleeping bag. On top of the covers, he added._ _

__She didn't say anything. She was pretending to be searching for something in one of the peeling cabinets._ _

__\--Mar._ _

__\--That's almost the Latin for ocean, what you keep calling me, she said, coming back to the bed with two wineglasses. And she sat down beside him._ _

__

__The morphine covered him in snow, drew a soft veil over his pain and his awkwardness. They talked about _Waiting for Godot_ and how annoying it was to get eyeliner in your eye and Dylan Thomas and about tornadoes and their favorite alcoholic drinks and their worst and best acid trips._ _

__He drifted awake before dawn. He lay absolutely still, afraid to even breathe too deeply._ _

__He was lying on his back, still in the sleeping bag. She was under the covers, separated from him by a wall of blankets. She had curled up close to him in her sleep. Her head was on his shoulder, her hair tangled against his neck, one arm across his chest with the fingers loosely closed. Other than that she was sleeping in an enthusiastic sort of, sprawl._ _

__The sky was just beginning to lighten outside, and he could see her face painted silverblue, her mouth like a child's mouth, her weight impossibly small against him. For going on three days now, they had been together._ _

__He managed to move the arm she wasn't lying on. Touched her wrist, her fingers, the line of her forehead. She didn't move. He kissed her just above her hairline, fingers memorizing her lightly, and watched her sleep._ _

__(12)_ _

__The knocking on the door woke them both up._ _

__There was frantic struggling, and she managed to elbow him hard. --Hide! she hissed at him._ _

__He was stuck in the sleeping bag, his back still at a dull roar. God, such wrong-feeling, glassy pain. --Where?_ _

__\--Just be quiet! she mouthed at him. She threw the blanket over him, even his face, and he felt her throw pillows over that. He had the insane urge to burst out laughing, thinking, _this is how she hides me? she disguises me as furniture? I hope my feet aren't sticking out.__ _

__He held his breath and wondered what the Hell he had done to deserve all this._ _

__He heard her get up, open the door, and he heard a male voice saying something unintelligible. Then, her footsteps again, and she uncovered him. --It's okay. It's Spectre._ _

__\--I slept in this sleeping bag, he told Spectre over her shoulder, squinting at the blades of sunlight smashing in through the open door. --I promise._ _

__Spectre was giving him an amused look. --I believe you._ _

__\--Really, he said, and remembered Shakespeare saying something about protesting too much, and shut the Hell up._ _

__\--I brought you this, Spectre told him, dropping something heavy into his lap._ _

__It was his bag. The stupid frayed olive-green thing patched with his own ugly huge stitches in fishing line, filled to bursting with most of his clothes. --Thanks. That would have been a problem, he said._ _

__\--I found the truck. The battery was stone cold dead. I'm guessing on a short, eh, light on in the glove box or something, Spectre added. --Hopefully, not the alternator. We jumped it. It's about a minute's walk away.._ _

__\--You're a saint, he said._ _

__Spectre waved that away. --I figured you didn't want to wear short sleeves to that revival. They freak about tattoos. There's something in Leviticus about it. Makeup, fine, just not red. And no ink._ _

__\--I'll keep that in mind, he said. Mary was giving him a pleading look for some reason. He didn't know what she wanted. It was too early for telepathy. --Are you going? he asked Spectre._ _

__Spectre laughed. --Are you kidding? They hate me. I'm illegitimate. I run a safe house. Are you coming back tonight?_ _

__\--Yes, he said._ _

__Mary gritted her teeth at him behind Spectre. Now he was utterly confused. And he couldn't try and signal anything back to her with Spectre looking._ _

__\--I'll leave you wicked heathens alone, then, Spectre said, grinning, and tipping his straw hat. --See you later. 'Bye, Mary, he told her, poking her in the shoulder on his way out._ _

__\--I will give you anything if you close that door, he told Mary, sitting up. Did he always have to wake up feeling like he'd been in a war? Was that really necessary?_ _

__She closed it. And she tossed him his sunglasses. --You should get dressed. It's almost noon and I think they already started._ _

__

__The shower actually worked, and produced really hot water. It performed miracles on his back. He put on the only long-sleeved shirt he owned, a black dress shirt with annoying buttons and an annoying collar and annoying cuffs at the wrists. He had to wear the same black jeans. The only other things in his bag were either skirts or leather._ _

__She was putting on makeup when he came out of the bathroom. It was bigger than seemed possible in there. In fact, they could have both--_ _

__\--I like that dress, he told her, interrupting himself. It was dark gray, with long sleeves and a princess waist._ _

__\--It isn't black, but they'll deal with it, she said._ _

__He offered her his arm when she was ready. She wasn't sure how to do that. He showed her, smoothed his hand over her hair just to touch her. --Anything I should keep in mind? Rules?_ _

__\--No profanity. No kissing. No drugs. And please don't get in a fight._ _

__He made an over-the-top sigh. --This is going to be one boring party._ _

__\--I'll be there, she said, sounding shy, as if someone else had told her that was her line._ _

__\--Damn. You just won. Again._ _

__\--Ha._ _

__

__He was terrified of crowds._ _

__Not just any crowd. This crowd. This crowd made Lucretia's evil little party look like a love-in._ _

__The tent was a sprawling white tumor, and the singing pouring out of it made his skin crawl. They weren't even bothering to stay in tune. They were yelling and screaming about Jesus and anointing and healing, and he knew this kind of party, too._ _

__Mary felt him wince. --Are you all right?_ _

__He had stopped, in the middle of the dirt trail that passed for Main Street. The scattered trailers and shacks on either side were empty. The windows of one little general store were boarded up, like bandaged eyes, and JESUS SAVES was painted there in purple._ _

__Everyone in town was imprisoned in that tent._ _

__He had read somewhere about a beast with a thousand eyes, a thousand hands. That beast was crouching in the tent ahead, and it could see him. He felt small, tiny, microscopic. And he could see the real him reflected in the beast's myriad eyes._ _

__\--Hey, she said, shaking his arm, gently._ _

__He shook his head, made a little fake smile for her. He was clutching at her hand, hard enough to hurt her. He stopped, patted her fingers. --Sorry. I just don't like huge crowds of b...of people._ _

__\--Do you want to go back?_ _

__She was looking up, worried, desperate to please him. Suddenly, all her words, all her actions seemed to fit together in his mind._ _

__She, cared how he felt, what he wanted, what he was thinking._ _

__He wanted to say to her, _don't care about me. Don't do that to yourself._ He didn't, because he wanted, this. All this. Even the parts he had no business wanting. Especially the parts he had no business wanting.._ _

__It showed in his eyes, this revelation. She couldn't see it. Sunglasses._ _

__\--I like you, he told her, his soul encoded in his voice. --And no, I don't want to go back, he told her. Immediately a bad heavy thing happened to his lips, his tongue, and he realized he couldn't tell her that. --Wait. That's a lie. I _do_ want to go back, very badly, but I...I need to go forward._ _

__She smiled at him, hesitantly. --I'm with you, she offered. --We can go whenever you want._ _

___No, I can't. I have never had any choices,_ he thought. _ _

__

__They stepped inside the tent. There was a crooked aisle with human walls. At the end of the tunnel of beast was a preacher in a gleaming white suit, shouting and gesturing, nearly drowned out by his ravenous flock._ _

___I'm gonna get me Jesus,_ he thought. He snapped open a compartment in one of his rings, extracted a Valium, and swallowed it. He made no attempt to hide it from her. She made a gesture at him with her lower lip and her eyebrows, and he gave her an innocent sunny look and mouthed the word _kiss._ \--Nobody saw, he said, in the low strange voice that only worked in crowds, and was only audible to the one you were speaking to._ _

__\--Be more careful, she transmitted back. He nodded. He _was_ being careful. She had no _idea_ how careful he was being._ _

__\--Who is that? he asked, staring at the corrupt thing ahead of them. They were moving forward still, with him leading them. The people in their path moved aside without noticing they were doing so. If Mary noticed it, she didn't say anything._ _

__\--His name is Elijah. He's Aaron's..._ _

__\--Flunky?_ _

__She nodded. She was very pale, and her beautiful mouth was crumpled into one thin line._ _

__There were two empty seats--or spaces in front of folding chairs, since no one was sitting--in the second row from the front. On the aisle. She had to notice that was too strange. She only stepped in beside him. He made sure she was on the outside. He wanted to tell her, _if anything happens, run like Hell._ He couldn't. He was pretty sure she already knew that._ _

__Elijah was deeply tanned, with sleek silver hair that he wore in a truly ludicrous comb-over. He was waving his arms over his head. The cufflinks in his white dress shirt glittered like broken teeth. Diamonds. Jesus. Exactly, he thought, and had to cover his mouth briefly._ _

___hey, and the holy ghost will COME DOWN HERE and BRING us the ANOINTING!!! can i get a praise god?? and TODAY THERE WILL BE HEALING HERE, BLESS GOD!!_ _ _

__He was suddenly, unbearable sure that they were as obvious and inappropriate as tourists in China. He and Mary both were just,standing there enduring the sermon and not clapping, not screaming, not swaying back and forth and muttering idiotic gibberish and not crying and not _falling for this.__ _

__He looked around, as surreptitiously as he could._ _

__They weren't the only ones _not_ behaving like cavemen in front of a Zippo. Far from it. There were many who were just standing, looking disgusted, scared, bored, sad. They all seemed to be in a little shell of invisibility. The devout ignored them. _ _

___They think everyone is doing it, because everyone is supposed to. And they're not looking around like I am. They aren't looking at anything but him. That man._ _ _

__He looked at Elijah, looked _into_ Elijah, this strange loud preacher. He saw a dark cold heart like a lost planet, covered in tinsel, in glitter, in makeup, rotting and chemical underneath the illusion. _ _

__He shivered. Freezing. Again. In the middle of the desert._ _

__In the belly of the beast. He was, and he knew it. He was deafened by its heartbeat, choking on the scent of it. The air was hot and dry and dusty, already drawn in by too many lungs. It smelled of desperation._ _

__\--Mary, be with me, he said under his breath, and she didn't hear him. She was there anyway, warm and real beside him. He looked at her, into her, to cleanse his mind. He saw a soft human heart wound up in the blurred shadow of a bird with oceancolored eyes. She looked at him then, just a glance. She had _felt_ him looking into her. That made it all right._ _

__\--He's going to heal my boy, said a parchment man at his left elbow._ _

__He turned to look at him, saw a withered sun-leathered face lit up by delusion, old eyes brimming with tears. He closed his eyes and looked at red darkness, turned and looked at Mary again. She looked disturbed, as if she were lost in her own thoughts, and didn't like what she was finding there. He touched her shoulder, and she turned and smiled at him, just wearing the expression for his benefit._ _

___God, these sick plastic people._ He pretended to adjust the cuff of his sleeve to touch the ink under the skin of his wrist. _ _

___and i want all of you that have come here today for healing to come down here and BE healed, hallelujah...somebody come help me pray..._ _ _

__Help him pray? How? Cue cards?_ _

__The imp of the perverse, urge, to go down there, to let this faker of an idiot touch him, to burn these lying hands with his true skin._ _

__Two men and one woman came up to surround Elijah like bodyguards. The men were praying fervently, silently, shaking. The woman was perhaps forty with the face of a woman three times that, and the bleached-white hair of a whore. She was waving her hands over her head. Her nails were long, the same purple as Lucretia's dress._ _

__People were moving forward, crying, waving like the white-haired hag, men, women, children, some limping, some bandaged, one or two in wheelchairs, some just people with no visible plague, except whatever damage was making them actually walk closer to Elijah, walk right _into_ the evil bleeding off of that man in dark thick waves._ _

__Elijah was raising his hands, gold rings gleaming, and he laid them on the forehead of a young woman with short red hair, Joan of Arc hair. She shuddered as though struck by lightning, and crumpled into the arms of Elijah's two lieutenants._ _

__His heart was trying to tear a hole in his throat, trying to shatter his spine. --Mary, he said, louder than he should have, frantic. She held his hand, eyes still on the spectacle. He was pressing his other hand to his chest, his mouth too wet, as if he were about to be ill. --I have to get out of here._ _

__\--We can't, she told him, and he turned and saw that she was right. The aisle had vanished, replaced by a current of bodies pouring towards the pulpit._ _

__He was having one of the worst panic attacks of his life._ _

__He watched. He had no choice. He was holding her hand too hard, and she was clutching back just as tightly._ _

__It was like being caught in a hurricane._ _

___If any of them looked at us, would they mistake our fear for faith?_ _ _

___Are any of them thinking this same thing, right this instant?_ _ _

__He tried to imagine Spectre in a place like this, that boy with his mind's eye open as wide and raw as a wound. He was almost certain it would have killed him. No wonder he didn't ever come to Calvary. He would be like a rose in a cesspool here, with his straw hat and rainbow colors. He would drown._ _

__How could she stand it? How could Mary live in a place like this?_ _

__How would he?_ _

___Fuck. You didn't just have that thought._ _ _

__It was too late. He had._ _

__He was having other thoughts, too. Thoughts about that bastard Elijah, about how he was almost looking forward to meeting Aaron._ _

__They were falling left and right, arms spread out like a backwards swan dive. Elijah was reciting a silly litany-- _the holy ghost is showing me a cancer, a cancer in this woman's arm, it looks like a snake biting her...come out of that woman, thou evilness! the power of Christ compels you!__ _

___The Exorcist._ That idiot had just quoted _The Exorcist._ Well, yeah, that was from some ancient Catholic book, but that _idiot_ was clearly thinking of, _The Exorcist._ He could hear the thought as clearly as if the combover were a speaker playing the dialogue. Nobody else seemed to notice. He looked at Mary again to see if she'd caught it. She was still looking forward, still looking troubled._ _

__The crowd seemed to be thinning. At his height he could see over just about everyone. With a little leaning he found out why. The prayer assistants--there were at least ten of them, now--were leading the newly healed out through the back of the tent, through a flap that was obscured by a banner that had something from Lamentations embroidered on it. Sometimes they were dragging them. He spotted one of them holding a heavyset young man in an elbow lock._ _

__And then, Elijah made a mistake._ _

__There was a teenager, a boy that looked vaguely Hispanic, short and muscled with a shaved head and a mustache and a loose-fitting jumpsuit, and he was standing waiting to be touched. Elijah was prattling on, no longer even looking his parishioners in the eye. He put his hands on the boy's forehead and shoved him backwards, hard enough to make him stumble, and immediately moved on, and lunged towards an elderly fat woman who was carrying a black lace parasol._ _

__The boy stood there, looking vaguely dazed, not at all hysterical. He looked after Elijah, holding out his hands, and then let them drop back to his sides, and shook his head. The boy turned and walked back towards the front of the tent, away from the preacher, looking angry and betrayed._ _

__He had seen enough._ _

__He couldn't let that happen, couldn't let that end like that. It wasn't fair. He had a weakness inside himself for that._ _

__He pushed at Mary, his hand on her back, until they were back out into the aisle, and pulled her along, chasing the dark-skinned boy. --Wait. Wait a minute, he called, and he let Mary's hand go, and snapped, --Stay _right_ there, and ran up to the boy and grabbed his arm and spun him around. _ _

__The boy stared up at him with deepset eyes, confused and angry. --What do you want? he said, spitting out the words, accusing and afraid._ _

__\--He didn't heal you, did he?_ _

__\-- _What?__ _

__\--It still hurts. Your lung. It's partially collapsed. You always feel dizzy and faint and out of breath. It hurts you. He didn't heal you. Did he?_ _

__The boy's face was wiped blank, his mouth hanging open. --How the Hell do you-_ _

__He pulled off his sunglasses, leaned over, gripped the boy by his upper arm and struck the left side of his chest with his fist, lightly, and said,_ _

__\--Breathe._ _

__The boy's face went absolutely white._ _

__He drew in a deep, painless breath._ _

__And screamed._ _

__\--No, no don't, don't do that, he hissed, terrified, and he tried to cover the boy's mouth, and the boy tried to run, and fell over a chair, and kicked and scrambled and picked himself up and ran, still screaming. In the general din, nobody really noticed._ _

__He didn't chase him. He stood there, desolate and not at all surprised, and put his sunglasses back on._ _

__Mary was pale and frightened beside him. --What on earth did you say to him?_ _

__\--I asked him how he liked the sermon. Let's get the Hell out of here, he said._ _

__As they left he saw two barrels flanking the door. He glanced into one. It was a third full of jewelry, small wrapped packages, silver coins, two handguns, two gallon jugs of gasoline, even cash, real paper money. Offerings. He reached into his pockets, not knowing what he was looking for until he found it, and dropped in the desert rasp of a rattlesnake's dried tail._ _

__(13)_ _

__There was an awkward and solemn picnic outside, with long splintered tables spread with platters of chicken and fried vegetables and just about every kind of cliche picnic food ever invented. There were smaller tents overhead, and sporadic clumps of people on folding chairs, talking quietly and eating quickly. It reminded him of a wake._ _

__They managed to get plates--you learned to never turn down food, the world being what it was--and sat apart from the others. They didn't really talk. Finally the tension and the silence was too much, and he threw a green bean at her and nearly made her strangle to death on a mouthful of lemonade. She was laughing again. That was what mattered. This little bit of immaturity earned them some resentful stares. He ignored them._ _

__She didn't even notice them to begin with. She was telling him about a snake she had found when she was seven that she had carried all the way home to ask if she could keep it as a pet, and when she'd gotten there her dad had nearly had a heart attack. She'd carried a baby rattlesnake over a mile._ _

__She hadn't seen him drop the rattle into Elijah's barrel. He nodded at her story, not surprised. Something in him tightened. Worry, maybe. She was too perfectly crafted to mesh into him. It would hurt him very badly to lose her, even now, after so few days._ _

__Suddenly, everyone was silent. It was as quick as a curtain falling._ _

__She shut up immediately and stood up, searching with her eyes. --It's Aaron and Nila. It has to be, she whispered to him._ _

__Aaron was a bald ancient man in round black-lensed glasses and a black wool coat, sitting in an antique wheelchair with his back absolutely straight, the set of his mouth and chin scornful and imperious. The legs of his pants were empty, the loose ends tucked under the stumps of his knees._ _

__Apparently Elijah's limits fell somewhere short of healing amputations._ _

__There was a knife of a woman in a black Puritan dress pushing the chair. The wheels were wide and thickly treaded, re-designed for desert sand. Nila wore a black veil, and her hands were studded with emeralds set in silver. What he could see of her face seemed carved out of a block of disapproval._ _

__They stood, about thirty feet away from the sparse gathering, only looking, until Nila turned the chair at some invisible signal, and pushed Aaron inside the revival tent. Probably that vicious silliness--the laying on of hands--was over. He could hear them singing some kind of hymn, more calmly and in key than before. He listened until it gave him a headache, but he didn't hear Nila or Aaron join in._ _

__(14)_ _

__\--Do you want to get stoned?_ _

__He turned on the voice and almost swung before he saw who it was. --Jordan! Don't fucking do that!_ _

__Jordan cringed, his face crumpling. --I just...I wanted..._ _

__He sighed, his heart going like a triphammer. He drew Jordan close, hugged him, feeling him trembling. --I'm sorry. I'm not angry at you. You just startled me._ _

__\--I just thought you might want to. What's wrong? You've been sitting out here staring at the chickens for like an hour, Jordan said, nearly wailing. He couldn't stand anyone shouting at him, being angry at him. It broke him into pieces._ _

__He hugged Jordan until he stopped shaking. --I'm sorry, he said again._ _

__Jordan sniffled. --You didn't bring Mary back with you? he asked. There was something endearingly jealous and hopeful in his voice._ _

__It was nice to hear, in an ugly way. _And here I felt guilty about being jealous of Zillah,_ he thought. _And I was just being human, after all._ \--No. She's at her house. I might go back there tomorrow. I don't know yet._ _

__\--Did it go okay?_ _

__He wanted to laugh. He didn't. He had walked her back to the house after the revival, kissed her twice with desperate passion. She still wouldn't let him use his tongue. The taste of her was driving him insane._ _

__Finally, he'd left her there and found the truck. He'd driven back to the safehouse in a delirium of happiness and dread and worry and lust and happiness. He wanted her. He wanted to keep her and see her every day and make her laugh until they were eighty and all that laughter he had given her was etched onto her face. He couldn't stop smiling._ _

__\--Yeah, it went okay, he said. The words were limp and inadequate. He didn't go into it to spare Jordan any more pangs of jealousy._ _

__\--Do you love her?_ _

__He stared at Jordan for that one. --I don't even really know her yet, he said, avoiding Jordan's eyes, pretending again. --And yes, I would love to get stoned._ _

__Jordan leaned closer, and said in a confiding whisper, --You did it again, didn't you? I can tell. You're all pale and you're tired and you snapped at me. Was it at that revival thing?_ _

__He sighed. --Jordan, are we actually going to smoke, or was that a cruel tease on your part?_ _

__Jordan shrugged. --Fine. Don't tell me. Yeah, we'll smoke._ _

__

__He usually smoked just enough to get pleasantly altered. Tonight he topped the bowl with opium, and smoked as much as he could as fast as he could, drinking vodka at the same time._ _

__Spectre watched this miniature drug orgy, seeming vaguely amused. --You're in love, he said, sounding pleased and proud and a little smug._ _

__\--You're delusional. He blew smoke through his teeth. --I like her. That's all._ _

__\--Then why are you trying to kill as many brain cells as possible? Are you going for the record? Most illegal substances consumed within a single night?_ _

__\--Spectre, that sense of humor is eventually going to cost you your front teeth, he said, passing the pipe to Zillah._ _

__\--Are you going back tomorrow? Spectre asked him._ _

__\--Yes, he said. Goddamnit. Not only could he not lie _to_ her, he had found that he was unable to lie _about_ her._ _

__He ignored the laughter Spectre gave him back in answer._ _

__

__He was in Spectre's bathroom three weeks later, brushing out his hair, staring at himself in the mirror. He found his own gaze uncanny, uncomfortable. His brain had a new habit of pointing out how strange looking he was, how his nose was too long and his teeth were too big. She couldn't possibly actually want to be with him, it would never work. The person in the mirror seemed contemptuous of him, scornful, mocking. He half-expected to fall into the mirror, to be left standing there while his reflection picked up the keys to the truck and left the house, and went to her._ _

__He turned away from his own face, grabbed the keys from the counter._ _

__

__Mary was pale and unpainted at her door, wrapped in her bathrobe again. --Don't look at me. I look awful. And don't kiss me. You'll catch whatever it is I have._ _

__He stepped inside. Pulled her close and kissed her anyway. --What's wrong?_ _

__\--A cold. Something. I'm just sick, she said. She was burning up under his hands, and her skin was gleaming with sweat._ _

__\--You can't be sick. I don't want you to be sick. He moved her back to the bed, made her sit down.. --How long have you been running a fever like this?_ _

__\--Since about an hour before you left yesterday._ _

__\--Jesus, Mar, are you crazy? You have to take something._ _

__\--I did. I just need to sleep it off, she said._ _

__\--Do you want me to come back later, or tomorrow--_ _

__\--No, no, she said, clinging to him. --Could you stay? Just for a little while?_ _

__\--I'm staying, I'm staying, he protested, laughing. She had thrown her arms around his neck. --What's wrong? I'm not going anywhere._ _

__\--I just wanted you here. Last night. I was so sick, I couldn't really sleep, and I was remembering how it was when you were here that night. The house is so empty without you. I missed you. I thought about walking to Spectre's to be with you._ _

__\--Jesus. You didn't try, did you? Here, he said, trying to maneuver her under the covers._ _

__\--Yes, but I didn't get very far--_ _

__He surprised her by taking her shoulders, shaking her once, hard. --Don't you _ever_ do that again. Ever._ _

__She looked at him, stunned, her mouth loose. --I do it all the time--_ _

__\--Not anymore, you don't, he told her._ _

__She seemed to reconsider saying something, nodded. --I won't._ _

__\--Now, tell me exactly how you feel._ _

__He had finally persuaded her under the covers. He took off his boots and dropped them and slid behind her, with his back against the wall, so that she was sitting up with her back against his chest._ _

__She resisted briefly, then leaned into him, sighing. --Hot and cold and shivery. And stuffy. And I hurt all over, and I keep wanting to cry._ _

__He was working on her shoulders, carefully. He was also fighting not to get aroused. _She's sick, and she's STILL sixteen, and you had just better behave yourself._ _ _

__\--It's the fever. Do you think you can sleep?_ _

__\--No._ _

__\--I promise I will stay right here, Mar._ _

__\-- _No._ I don't want to sleep, I don't want to dream dreams like that again..._ _

__She was crying, now, and it stunned him, his reaction to this. He wanted to pick up the biggest stick he could find and storm around until he found whatever was to blame for her tears and beat it into a smear. Instead he kept his arms around her, kind of rocked her a little, and kept saying her name and _shhh_ and _it's okay, I'm here._ He felt abysmally, terrifyingly helpless. _ _

__\--What did you dream?_ _

__She shook her head, turned her face against his chest. He was stroking her hair, holding her carefully, like a butterfly, like he might break her. --I was standing out in the desert, and I saw an angel fall out of the sky, and he was lying on the ground, and when he looked up, it was you, only you had long teeth and long nails, but I wasn't afraid of you. Then Aaron made a tornado come and take you back up, and then he was going to send me away to a hospital. And there were guns, someone had a lot of guns, and the noise was so terrible. And then Spectre was there, and he was bleeding and he wouldn't talk to me, she said, still crying. --I knew it was silly but I was so scared, and I wanted you here._ _

__Cold. Ice. Dread. His tongue pushed against his teeth, still too-big, still flat. Not pointed at all. --I'm sorry I didn't know that you needed me, he whispered._ _

__\--You couldn't have known, she said, sniffling._ _

___Yes, I could have, and I would have, but I was stoned out of my mind so I wouldn't keep seeing you under me, moaning and pleading and wanting me, so I wouldn't hear you in my head, so I wouldn't wonder what we might name our children._ _ _

__\--I'm here now, he told her. --Go to sleep. I won't let you dream anything._ _

__\--I don't mind dreams. Just not like that one, she said, laughing a little, her voice still strained._ _

__\--Other dreams, then. Dream this, he said, and whispered something medium-to-heavy filthy in her hear that made her squeak and smack at him lightly. --I'm kidding you, Mar. Sleep. It's okay. I'll be here when you wake up._ _

__\--Will you?_ _

__\--Yes, he told her again, knowing she needed to hear it._ _

__He held her, felt her relax, listened to her breathing grow steady and slow. She was too hot against him, and her hands were cold, and he was worried to death._ _

__

__Hours later he eased himself out from under her, tiptoed the few steps to her tiny kitchen and poked around until he found a glass. There was a refrigerator with a freezer. He opened it. She needed more of just about everything, unless the emptiness was normal, and he made a mental note to leave in search of some kind of grocery store if she was well enough to be left alone. The faucets had running water that was mostly clear and actually got hot if you waited, the same as in the shower. She probably had a generator somewhere. He would have to check it out, if he ever found her any light bulbs.  
She murmured in her sleep. _ _

__He went back to her. She wasn’t asleep, he discovered—awake, but dazed. He had a glass of cold water, four aspirin from his bag. --Here, he told her._ _

__She shook her head._ _

__He made her sit up and swallow them anyway._ _

__\--I just hurt. Everywhere. She was getting hoarse. After she spoke she started coughing._ _

__\--I need to go out to the truck. Stay here._ _

__\--No, she pleaded, holding out her hands._ _

__He kissed her forehead. --I'll be right back. One minute. That's all. I brought the rest of the opium._ _

__\--No, we can't do it here, they'll--_ _

__\--We're the only ones here. Don't worry about it, he told her. --It'll help you. It's good for pain. And good for_ _

___lungs,_ he thought,  
\--cough, he finished, and even to his own ears it sounded, lame. Substituted._ _

__She followed him with her eyes all the way out the door._ _

__He wrestled open the glove compartment, found the little plastic bag with the gummy ball of opium. The pipe was under bleached papers there, and he took that too, stuffed them both in his pocket._ _

__It was getting dark. The sunset was usually beautiful. Tonight it was hideous, a sickly violet-green smeared with gray clouds. He stared at this omen, shivering. _She's fine. She'll be fine. It's just the flu. A virus. Anything. It'll pass in a day or so.__ _

__He thought of Elijah, pretending to see snakes and demons afflicting his followers. He never saw it that way himself. He would see a dark heavy membrane like a shroud, clinging and winding through flesh and bone. He would take hold of it, and pull it out, cast it into the air, the ground, into himself when nothing else would work._ _

__He hadn't seen it on Mary, that sticky darkness, because he wasn't looking. He didn't want to see it._ _

__Back inside, he sat beside her, loaded the pipe, found a lighter for her. It made her cough, and she handed it back to him._ _

__He hit it himself, and cupped the back of her head and breathed smoke into her mouth. That worked better. She could manage that without coughing. After the fourth or fifth lungful he could feel the drug burning in her skin, and he snuck in a kiss, licked at her teeth, at the roof of her mouth. She gasped, giggled, and that started her coughing again. --Quit laughing, then, he told her, laughing too._ _

__\--You cheated! And that feels so weird! Her hand was moving between her mouth and her neck, not touching in either place, just wandering._ _

__\--Here. Give it back to me, this time._ _

__They passed a lungful of smoke between them until she had to move back for air. He lured her into another kiss. She didn't cough or giggle this time._ _

__He groped and banged his way to the kitchen, managed to put the kettle on the gas stove._ _

__\--What are you doing?_ _

__He found bread in her freezer, pried off two slices and put them in her antique toaster. --Making you tea._ _

__\--With the toaster?_ _

__\--And toast, he amended, and fought with the little plastic switch until it stayed down. One more thing to add to his list of things she needed: new toaster._ _

__\--I don't want any toast._ _

__\--Well, that's just too bad, oh so sad, Mar, because you're having some anyway, he told her._ _

__She didn't answer. He peeked down the hall and thought he saw her smile._ _

__It wasn't real tea. That was almost impossible to get, now. It was the same fragrant substitute that Spectre used. It reminded him of blackberries. His first toast experiment burned it into charcoal, which made her laugh again. He displayed his accomplishment with a bow and a flourish. She applauded. He trashed them, tried again and succeeded. He brought it to her, on a plain white plate, along with the tea still hot and filled with too much sugar._ _

__She nibbled at the toast, and she only finished the tea because he stared a warning at her when she tried to set it aside._ _

__\--Do you still hurt? His fingers kept finding reasons to wander over her hair, her shoulder. He could see her sickness in the lines of her mouth, even though she shook her head and pretended to smile. God, he was so damn _worried.__ _

__He made her lie back, arranged the covers over her. --If you're not better by morning, I'm taking you to Spectre's._ _

__She nodded. It had a quality of, listless, that he didn't like._ _

__He started to get up, to go and sit on the little chair in front of the dressing table. She caught at him again. --Stay here. Just until I'm sleeping?_ _

__He arranged himself beside her, cracked open a book frrom his pocket. . --No dreams, he promised her._ _

__

__(15)_ _

__

__She wasn't better in the morning, and there was no way in Hell he could possibly take her to Spectre's._ _

__She woke him with an agonized fit of coughing. She was making a terrible wheezing, wailing sound._ _

__He was holding her up before he was even awake, making her sit up, holding her arms up. --Breathe, Mar. Breathe. It's okay._ _

__She didn't even hear him. He laid her back down, on her side. She didn't resist, didn't even notice. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. She was as hot as someone with sun sickness._ _

__He stood up, pacing, watching her, his hands wandering to his mouth, up into his hair, back to his mouth. He had no idea what to do._ _

__\--Don't make me do this, he whispered to her. --Please, Mar. Not to you. Please don't make me._ _

__She couldn't hear him._ _

__\-- _Fuck!_ he shouted, at everything in general, half-hoping it would wake her. It didn't._ _

__He shoved his feet into his boots, wrapped the laces, knotted them, muttering _god no not you_ to himself. He put on his sunglasses, kissed her hard on the mouth, said one more thing she couldn't hear, and left, walking towards town._ _

__

__DRUGSTORE was painted in dark green over the door. A smaller placard on the door said _God bless you for your business in cash or goods. Gasoline and kerosene needed.__ _

__He went inside. It was the kind of place that doubled as a post office, that sold straw hats and brooms and bleach and candy and envelopes and faded postcards. There was a splintered wooden counter along the back wall that had probably once been a bar. It was labeled PHARMACY in marker on a piece of cardboard. A fat pale man in a too-small black suit and a powder-blue tie sat there, paging through a leather-bound book._ _

__He stood there, patiently. The man looked up at him, disinterestedly, and went back to his reading._ _

__\--Hi. I think I need your assistance._ _

__\--You got a prescription? the man drawled out, not even looking up._ _

__This was converting worry into anger pretty goddamned quick. --Is there a doctor in this town? he countered._ _

__\--Nope._ _

__\--That's why I don't have a prescription._ _

__\--There's a doctor in Clayton. 'Bout eighty miles east._ _

__\--I don't have eighty miles, he snapped. --I don't have the eight seconds of my life I just wasted in this conversation. I need antibiotics._ _

__\--Can't just give em to you. You talk to Elijah?_ _

__He took off his sunglasses, tucked the earpiece into the collar of his shirt. He kept his eyes down. --You're not going to give them to me. I'm going to buy them from you. And Elijah doesn't have shit to do with this._ _

__\--You want to watch that--_ _

__He was tired of this game. He looked up at the pharmacist then. The man had just enough time to see his eyes and open his mouth to yell when he lunged across the counter. He grabbed this human by his idiotic tie and pulled him forward so hard his feet came off the ground. -- _Listen._ You get your fat ass back there and you hand me whatever the fuck you give someone for pneumonia or I will twist your head right off your goddamned neck, _you got that?__ _

__The man squeaked things that rhymed with _yes,_ nodded frantically. _ _

__He let the idiot go, and watched him scrambling through bottles of pills. He didn't take his eyes off him._ _

__The man began setting bottles in front of him, shaking. --Antibiotic, and this here is for congestion, and--_ _

__\--I need something for fever. And something for pain._ _

__The man nodded, swallowing hard, and set those down, too._ _

__He kept him pinned with his gaze, unscrewed the cap of all four bottles, set one of each pill on the counter. --Take them._ _

__\--I...you don't...._ _

__\--Take them. If they don't kill you, I know you didn't try to get smart with me, he ordered._ _

__The man picked up the pills, dry-swallowed them, trembling and white as bleached bone. --There. See? I didn't do you no wrong._ _

__He picked up the bottles, recapped them, stuffed them into his pockets. He took off one of his rings, a plain band of pure platinum, and dropped it on the counter. --Is that enough?_ _

__\--That's, more than..._ _

__\--Thanks._ _

__He put his sunglasses back on._ _

__He was at a dead run by the time he got outside._ _

__

__She wouldn't swallow them._ _

__She had either coughed or vomited a horrifyingly dark, thick fluid onto one of her pillows._ _

__\--Mar, please. You have to. Come on. At least these two, he pleaded, picking the antibiotic and the decongestant out of his palm. --Just these. They'll make you better. Come on._ _

__\--Can't._ _

__He pushed her hands out of his way and pressed his ear against her chest. It was there, all right. A fluid percolating rattle._ _

__He crushed the pills between two spoons, stirred them into more tea. She drank two swallows, pushed it away, and made it halfway to the bathroom before she threw it up._ _

__She was crouching in the floor, crying, coughing. --Leave me alone. Go away, she wailed at him, trying to push him away from her._ _

__He got her back in the bed, peeled her bathrobe off her and scrubbed her with it. She curled up in the bed, in her bra and panties, clutching the pink blanket close. She was still crying, her hands pressed hard against her ribs. _Hurts,_ she mouthed at him._ _

__He came over, sat down, eyes aching, and laid his hand over hers. --I know._ _

__

__He was lying behind her, stroking her hair. He had dressed her in a t-shirt of his own, and once he had it over her head with her arms in the sleeves he gritted his teeth and reached under it and took off her bra, maneuvering the straps down her arms and over her hands without taking the shirt off again. He didn't think the pressure around her ribs was doing her any good. She didn't resist, didn't really even seem to notice. It was like dressing a mannequin, or a doll_ _

___(or a corpse)_ _ _

__He wiped her face and her neck and her hands with a wet dishtowel, persuaded her into tiny sips of the tea until she fell asleep again._ _

__\--Don't make me do this, Mar, he whispered to her, one more time. His temples were wet. He didn't feel it._ _

__The next morning he couldn't wake her. Nothing worked. He even bit the cartilage of her ear, hard, something that worked no matter how much alcohol you'd had. Nothing. She didn't even flinch, even though he could see the marks of his teeth darkening into a bruise._ _

__An infection wasn't like a broken wrist, a collapsed lung. He would have to be in her down to the cellular level. There would be no changing what that would do._ _

__\--Mary, I'm going to have to hurt you. Very badly, he whispered to her, standing beside her bed. --Forgive me._ _

__He took off his rings, put them in his pocket. He took a deep breath, bent over her, pushed her shirt up to just under her breasts, pushed his hands under the edge--so much higher than most people thought._ _

__He laid his hands over her lungs._ _

__He did it quick and hard. He would have spared her no pain by being gentle. It would have only taken longer._ _

__It pulled her up off the bed like someone demon possessed. The sound it drove out of her was almost sexual, almost passionate. He was just, pulling, like an endless inhale. Only her feet were touching the bed, now, her hands and her head hanging back limp, his hands flat against her skin drawing her up in magnetic levitation._ _

___Four breaths. Three. Two. One, one more breath--_ _ _

__He was crying. Sobbing. She fell back onto the bed with a muffled thump. She wasn't moving . She wasn't breathing._ _

__He fell to his knees. He could feel her infection burning in his joints, in his throat._ _

__He dragged her over to him, slapped her twice, hard. --Breathe. Goddamnit. Mar._ _

__Her chest hitched._ _

__She sucked in a deep shrieking breath, exhaled._ _

__He listened again. No fluid. No rattle. Her heartbeat was slow, but steady._ _

__He covered her up again. She would sleep for at least two days. Sometimes it was as long as a week. She was young._ _

__He picked up the bottles of pills from her bedside table, along with his sunglasses. He left again. This time, he walked out into the desert._ _

__(16)_ _

__

__He went due south, walking in a straight line. The sand went from hard-packed closer to Calvary, to scratchy and studded with rocks, to wide vast dunes the texture of powder. He kept going until the sun was straight overhead, slamming down on him in hard sheets of light and heat._ _

__He sat down, in the middle of the inferno, took two of the antibiotics, and lay on his back. The sky overhead was hospital-white and bigger than anything._ _

__He waited._ _

__His skin did not burn, and after a while he was no longer sweating. His heartbeat went through all the phases of frantic speed, and finally slowed to an occasional thickblooded pulse just before sunset._ _

__\--Was that such a terrible choice for you?_ _

__The voice was pretending to be sympathetic, but there was an edge of amusement underneath. The waiting was over._ _

__He said, --You have no right to ask me that._ _

__

__(17)_ _

__

__Zillah was standing with his arms folded, a black cloak snapping in the wind from his shoulders. He had abandoned his imaginary identity. They both had. --Don't I? Did you have any right to do that? Oh, I'd forgotten that you never have been happy with God's will._ _

__He closed his eyes. Opened them._ _

__Zillah smiled. --You remember me, now. I bet you just thought I had one of those faces._ _

__\--God has forgotten what it is like to be human, he said, standing up. He would not do this looking up at Zillah. They were by no means on equal ground, and he could not afford to ignore even the slightest advantage._ _

__\--You've forgotten almost everything. You don't even remember your own name. Oh, you use subtlety, a little illegal glamour so that none of them notice that they have no word for you. It doesn't work on me._ _

__\--I remember how to love, he said, too softly for Zillah to hear._ _

__\--You should have just chosen something, Zillah went on. --Any old name will do._ _

__\--Not to me, he said, dizzy._ _

__Zillah moved closer to him, the light of Hell burning in his gray eyes. --Do you know me? Or are you just bluffing?_ _

__\--I know you serve my Enemy. That's all I need to know._ _

__Zillah nodded, considering this. --What was that like for you? he asked, gouging in with words, with his smile. --Working on her like you would work on that truck? Seeing her for the flesh machine she is?_ _

__\--Stop it._ _

__\--It _does_ bother you, Zillah taunted, laughing._ _

__\-- _You_ bother me. Get away from me. _ _

__He turned to look out at the horizon._ _

__\--So make me vanish. Erase me. Unmake me. Send yourself away from here. Go to Rome. Go to Hawaii. New York. Go to 1969 and watch Hendrix play Woodstock. Go back to her._ _

__He said, nothing._ _

__Zillah laughed because he thought he was winning. --You're here because you choose to be._ _

__\--Yes, he snapped, turning on Zillah so quickly that he drew back a fraction of an inch. --That much is true. I _am_ here by choice. Can you say the same thing?_ _

__Zillah's face betrayed him, the ghost of rage and long teeth flashing into view for the space of a breath. He smoothed it over with a hustler smile. --You're just angry about Jordan._ _

__He shook his head. --I already know you can't touch him. You can fuck him all you want. His heart belongs to me._ _

__\--Oh, I don't intend to hurt him. I think you can handle that all by yourself._ _

__He turned away again, his eyes stinging._ _

__Zillah went on, merciless. --I almost pity you, he whispered._ _

__This part was true._ _

__\--You're going to die for being something you don't even know how to be. And you won't understand that until it's too late._ _

__\--I understand more than you think._ _

__\--Really? It doesn't seem that way, Zillah said. You can heal their bodies. Who's going to heal their minds? Who's going to restore the faith you destroy with all these selfish miracles?_ _

__He turned on Zillah, shaking in rage. --They have to heal their own minds. They have to find faith in themselves. That's why I'm here._ _

__\--Please. You overestimate human intelligence. They'll pretend to worship you, but what they will really feel is terror. And anything that is different and scary to this race, they hunt down and kill._ _

__He moved to strike out, furious_ _

__and Zillah caught his hands and drew him close and kissed him hard and deep before he could resist._ _

__\--I can save you, Zillah whispered, the words long and soft and drawn out, their mouths wet, together._ _

__He fell into it for one perilous instant, the feeling of flesh like his own after so long, the hot texture of Zillah's tongue, that familiar smell of the space between stars_ _

___(mary)_ _ _

___(who is tempting who, who is, tempting)_ _ _

__he shoved Zillah away. Struck him across the face._ _

__\--I told you to go away from me. Get into the wilderness, go into the high places. You're not wanted here._ _

__Zillah laughed. There was hurt in it. --You remember those words pretty well. I guess you've heard them enough times._ _

__\--Shut up._ _

__\--You're giving up something you _do_ want, very badly. And you're giving it up forever._ _

__\--I've read that book. Norman Mailer. Fuck _off_.  
Tears? Was that what this was called, this choking wetness? _ _

__Zillah was still too unearthly for that. --Can you be your own reflection? Can you really do that?_ _

__\--I'm already doing it, he whispered. --Go. _Dingir.__ _

__Zillah's face unfolded into terrible grief, and then he was gone._ _

__He looked into the east. The first star was just beginning to glow. It was called Venus, now, but it had once had another name._ _

__Lucifer._ _

__He started back to Calvary, and Mary._ _

__(18)_ _

__

__She was sleeping. Her skin was cool to the touch. Her breath was slow and deep._ _

__He cried a little, again, still, looking down at her. It was more out of relief than anything else._ _

__He rummaged around in his bag for his notebook, made two false starts that he scribbled out, finally did it right, and tore out the page, and folded it carefully._ _

__He moved the little chair from the vanity to the side of her bed, and sat there, waiting for her to wake up._ _

__

__She made a long stretching motion, and opened her eyes, and sat up, smiling at him. Her eyes were stickybright with sleep, and her hair was messy and gorgeous. --I'm so glad you made me take that awful stuff. God, I feel so much better. Thank you._ _

__He didn't answer her._ _

__\--What's wrong?_ _

__He took off his favorite ring, the one with the secret compartment. He took her hand. He had to put it on her forefinger, and it still hung loose. --Open it, he told her softly._ _

__She gave him an amused, suspicious look. --Is it drugs?_ _

__He laughed, a little weakly. --No. Not this time._ _

__She had to fumble with the tiny catch for a minute, before she finally opened it. Inside was a piece of paper, folded up into a little hard capsule. She unfolded it, read it twice, and her eyes filled with tears._ _

__It said: _I love you. I missed you before I knew you. Will you marry me?__ _

__\-- _Yes,_ she said, and scrambled into his lap in a tangle of knees and elbows, nearly breaking his ribs. She was kissing him all over his face._ _

__He kissed her back, feeling her hand on his neck, with his ring heavy and cold on her finger._ _


	2. SUN

BOOK TWO:  
SUN

 

 

 

(19)

 

He asked Spectre's permission, as Mary's only living male relative. That was required in the code of the Underground. He screwed up the formal wording beyond repair, and finally just made something up.

Spectre listened to his petition, smiling a little at the parts that came out butchered, and did not interrupt until he was finished. Finally, he asked, --Do you love her?

He had expected, _how do you expect to support the two of you, or what the Hell do you think you're doing, you've known her for three fucking months!_

He thought about it, not about his answer, about how to phrase his answer. Finally, he said quietly, --I drove her home, that night. If I had just wanted to fuck her, I already would have. Yes, I love her. More than anything. I want to live to make her laugh. I don't know how I will support us, but I will find a way. Any way. I'll turn tricks, if I have to. I've done it before. I don't think I will have to. I can type, sew, do carpentry, clean, run a cash register, drive farm machinery...I have marketable skills. I want to be her husband. I want her to stay at home and wait for me. I want her happy.

Spectre nodded. Then, he led him from the porch into the living room, where Zillah and Jordan waited. --I believe that this man has honorable intentions. I do not know him. Will anyone here speak for him?

\--I will, Jordan said, almost before Spectre had finished speaking.

\--I also, Zillah seconded, refusing to meet his eyes. That amazed him. --He is a man of dignity and honor. He will honor your family.

All of these were formal words, which boiled down to the fact that Spectre had already said yes. That much was evident by the fact that he was listening to any character witnesses at all. A _no_ was always immediate.

Usually.

Spectre went into the kitchen, without a word, giving him a bad three minutes of doubt that nearly forced him into a nervous breakdown.

After eternity, Spectre came back--with a bottle of expensive champagne and four glasses. --Congratulations. I guess you're my future...what, uncle-in-law?

He smiled, almost dying of dizziness and relief. --Thank you, he said, and he couldn't think of any more to say, so he said it again. --Thank you.

He hugged Spectre close, having to grab at him to do it, almost upsetting the champagne, holding him too hard. Spectre groped until Jordan rescued the bottle, and hugged him back, patting his shoulder. --It's okay. Congrats. I'm happy for both of you, he said, over and over.

\--I'll make her happy. I'll make her queen, he promised, his eyes aching. --I adore her. I promise you.

 

Three months later, they bought a marriage license from a flat-faced woman with mouse-brown hair at City Hall. She gave them each a questionnaire to fill out, and they sat on uncomfortable chairs in the lobby and compared answers and giggled. They asked Mary if she was a virgin, if she intended to obey her husband, if she intended to raise her children within the church. --Don't they mean the tent? he whispered to her, making her screech and smack him.

They asked him if he could support a family, provide for his wife, and if he understood a lifelong commitment. 

They brought back the forms, with a squiggle where his name belonged that the clerk didn't look twice at. She started listing the times that Elijah would be able to conduct their ceremony.

\--Thanks, that won't be necessary, he said quickly. Mary was standing beside him, holding his hand in both of hers. --I'm from another township, and we're going to be married there, by a friend of the family, he told her, handing her two hundred dollars in paper cash, and leaning on her mind with a featherlight insistence.

The clerk frowned, pressed her lips into a thin disapproving line, but she took the money and gave him a copy of the license.

\--Where did you get that? Are you crazy? You can't let them know you have that kind of money. They'll start asking questions, Mary told him, once they were outside.

\--You're supposed to obey me, remember? Mind your own business, he teased her, moving quickly to avoid the kick she directed at his shin. 

\--I'm serious, she insisted, putting her hands on her hips and giving him one of those looks.

\--So am I. Get in the truck. I have to buy you a wedding dress, he said.

 

 

He married her one week later, at sunset, in the shadow of the oak tree behind the safehouse. Spectre led the ceremony, dressed in a gray tuxedo and his straw hat. Zillah and Jordan were there, both in black dresses, more or less as bridesmaids. 

He was in a black tuxedo of his own, with a red shirt underneath. Mary was in a blood-red wedding dress he had found over a hundred miles away, in a consignment shop, with a full train and floor-length veil. She had on black lipstick, carefully applied by Jordan, and a bouquet of marijuana leaves (Jordan again) with a single white rose in the middle.

He promised to love her forever. She promised him the same thing, even though she looked at him on the obey part. When they were man and wife he bent her all the way back to kiss her until she was damn near lying on the ground, getting sand in her dress, laughing, her veil crooked and her lipstick ruined. 

She threw the drug bouquet behind her. Zillah caught it, and gave the groom an amused and cold look.

The back of the truck was piled high with furniture and plywood and bedsheets and clothes. Jordan had written THIS SUCKER JUST GOT MARRIED, HALLELUJAH!! in white shoe polish all over it, along with interlocking pairs of hearts and smiley faces. Tin cans and combat boots were strung from the bumper.

They both kissed everyone--he even kissed Zillah, on the cheek this time, and a little too quickly. And he helped Mary bundle her red dress into the truck, kissed her again for the benefit of their wedding party (all right, so there were ulterior motives there) and roared out of Spectre's yard, towards Calvary, rattling all the way.

 

(20)

 

The red wedding dress was on a hanger, dangling from one of the cabinet handles in the kitchen. Mary had disappeared into the bathroom, where she was taking an exceedingly long shower.

He brought in one of Spectre's wedding gifts--an ivory goosedown comforter, with silk sheets to match. He had never really made up a bed before. The sheets were too big, confusing him utterly. Finally, he stuffed the extra material up under the mattress. 

He lit candles, and the kerosene lamp, and paced. He knew damn well what the bride was supposed to wear on her wedding night. Nobody ever had any suggestions for the groom. He settled for taking off his jacket, his tie, and his boots. He left the makeup on. He couldn't have taken it off anyway with her in the bathroom. He took her brush from the vanity and dragged it through his hair. After that he sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

She came out in a cloud of steam and perfume, and went straight over to the vanity and sat down. She was dressed in the black silk cruelty he had bought her. She had the outer robe over it, held close up to her chin. She was brushing out her hair, her hands shaking. 

He came up behind her, took the brush away and did it for her, very gently. --I love your hair. 

She made a nervous laugh. --It's just like yours.

He smiled at that. --Maybe. It looks better on you.

She was about to cry. He could tell. He set the brush down and leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, near her ear, and put his hands on her shoulders and whispered, --What are you so afraid of?

\--You, she said, in a tiny scared voice. --I'm afraid of you.

He kept working on her shoulders, trying to unknot the muscles there. 

\--Have I ever hurt you, Mar?

\--Well, you bit my finger, she said.

He tugged at the end of her hair for that one. --Besides that.

She shook her head, looking down at her hands. Her lips moved. He couldn't hear her, and he leaned closer. --It's just me, Mar. Same old me.

She shook her head again, faster.

\--What is it?

\--I can't tell you, she pleaded, desperate now. 

He went down on his knees and pulled her around to look at him. --Whisper it to me. I won't tell. Come on.

She put her hand on his shoulder, timid and embarrassed, and whispered so close her breath was in his hair. _My mother told me that this...what's going to happen...is painful. And degrading. And I'm really afraid of pain. I can't stand it, I never could._

\--Oh, God, the things we do to our children, he said, not really to her, and pulled her closer than close and hugged her hard. --Oh, Mar. My beautiful, beloved Mary. Do you trust me to prove her wrong? he asked her.

\--I wish you would. I just want...to make you happy. I just don't want you...to not want me anymore.

\--You'll be a widow the day that happens, he promised her. --Come on. Your hair is fine. I'm just going to mess it up again anyway, he said, smearing his hand through it to make her smile. --Come here.

He brought her over to the bed. She was still afraid. She followed him anyway. 

He pulled her down beside him, and just lay there with her, touching her face, looking into her eyes. 

\--Don't hurt me, she pleaded, and that was the last of her voice.

She didn't resist. She let him kiss her, let him touch her. After a long space of time she raised her hands to touch him back.

He put his fingers where she needed them, finally, gentle and awed by this mystery he was touching, and said, _does that hurt?_

She made a frantic sound in answer, and said _I love you,_ and bit his shoulder hard, and moved against him.

 

In the end he destroyed her hair, ruined her makeup, and snapped the strap of her nightgown. When it was finished, nearly dawn again, she was lying with her feet tangled with his, her mouth open against the back of his hand, her breathing deep and even and exhausted. There was blood on the sheets. 

He prayed these people weren't insane enough to make him hang them out the window. Mary would die of embarrassment.

He woke up before she did, and when she opened her eyes he asked her, --Was your mother wrong?

\--My mother was an _idiot,_ she told him, and licked the hollow of his throat, pretending to growl.

 

(21)

 

They drove back to Spectre's for dinner that night. Everyone there made merciless fun of them _\--how's your back? Are you thirsty? Did the neighbors complain?_

\--I don't _have_ any neighbors, Mary had said, exasperated, snapping at Jordan with a dishtowel.

\--Lucky them, Spectre said behind her, an assault on two fronts. She turned and caught him in the neck with the corner of the wet towel. He went down with satisfying gargling sounds, both hands clutched to his offended throat.

He watched this, laughing sometimes. Something was different, now. He was a part of these things. He was no longer just an observer. He could go to Mary. She would kiss him, hold him, scream and laugh if he picked her up and ran through the house with her. 

He _belonged_ somewhere. 

He belonged here.

Nowhere, in any of his faded patchwork memories was there anything like this.

She came up to him, handed him a drink, kissed him deeply enough to make him shudder. --You look so serious, sitting over here all alone.

\--So come sit with me.

Someone tapped on the front door.

It was almost comical. Everyone in the house shut up. Everyone in the house looked at him to see what they should do.

_Must I be the leader? This isn't even my house._

He went to the door. --Who is it?

There was no answer.

He reached behind him. Jordan put a gun in his hand. 

Spectre tried to push Mary towards the bedroom. She leaned hard against his hands and glared at him. He stood in front of her instead.

He opened the door, thumb on the safety, gun up and ready. There was no one there. There was only a shoebox-sized package wrapped in brown paper, marked with a cross in pencil. 

He nudged it with his toe. It rattled.

He brought it inside. 

\--It's an offering, Spectre told him. --It's a gift for religious reasons.

He handed Jordan back his gun. He set the possible bomb on the coffee table, studied it, and finally unwrapped it. The inside of the paper read: _for the man who healed me at the church. god bless you._

He folded that, quickly, so that none of them would see it. Especially Zillah. --It's for me, he said. 

There was about a hundred and fifty dollars in change and bills. --Jesus. There's no way he can afford this. I have to give it back, he said, starting towards the door.

\-- _No,_ Mary said, Spectre repeating it a half-beat behind her. --You can't give it back. That's an incredible insult; you have to keep it. It's yours.

\--You have it, then, he said. He set the shoebox in her lap, went into Spectre's bathroom, closed and locked the door.

She was there, knocking, not two seconds later. --Don't be angry at me.

He was staring into the mirror, having a furious conversation in the language of thought. --I'm not angry at you, Mar. I love you. I'll be right out, he told her, without taking his eyes off himself.

He opened Spectre's medicine cabinet, took out a package of razor blades. 

He cut the back of his arm, two long tugging buttery pulls, deep enough for blood to run into the sink. 

_Don't you do that to me ever again,_ he thought at his image. _Not ever._

(22)

 

The first one happened two weeks later.

They were celebrating their two-week anniversary, camped out on the kitchen floor, smoking a joint, drinking red wine. He was trying to teach her to French inhale.

\--You have to blow upwards, out of your mouth, then inhale it through your nose. Like this. 

She blew out a silly puff of smoke with her lips puckered into a satire, and expired with laughter, lying on the vinyl floor, holding her wineglass miraculously upright.

\--No, you _geek,_ he said, pretending to be exasperated. 

She dipped her fingertips in her wine, flicked them at him.

\--Oh, that's _it._ I try to teach you something, and this is how you act? You are in so much trouble. He took her glass away, pinned her to the floor, held her hands above her head. --Apologize, he ordered, mock-furious, with vague delicious ideas of turning her over his knees when she refused.

\--Never! she shrieked, wiggling. It made him grind his teeth.  
He was kissing her neck, biting to leave strawberry marks when someone banged on her front door..

He sat up. They stared at one another in horror.

\--Spectre? he asked her.

She shook her head. --Aaron?

\--Why? I haven't even stepped on his toes. 

\--Oh, that's _awful,_ toes, she whispered, looking appropriately scandalized.

\--Not yet, anyway. Too busy, he grumbled. He snapped his teeth centimeters from the tip of her nose to make her squeal. --Jesus, this whole...goddamned house...reeks of weed. 

He stubbed out the joint in the ashtray, hid the entire thing in the cabinet under the sink. 

He opened the door. The man there was vaguely familiar. He was standing there, looking embarrassed, hat in his hands.

 _At the revival. He was one of the lieutenants, catching fainting parishioners and dragging out the subversives._  
The man was no longer ironed, impeccable and stone-faced. In fact, he looked as if he had been crying. --Please, he began. --My name is Daniel. My daughter...she's terribly sick. She's dying. Please, you have to help her. Elijah already tried. They say...you healed Issac's lung. You're for real.

 _It's started,_ he thought. And so soon. God, so soon.

\--I think you have the wrong house, he said, coldly, and started to shut the door.

\--Wait! Daniel held the door open, groping in his pocket.

\--I don't want any money. I'm not a healer. If she's dying, you need a doctor or a priest. I'm, not, either.

\--No, just a minute....

Daniel pulled out the only thing on earth that could have persuaded him. 

A photograph.of a little girl in a white dress, with bright gold hair, combed and fluffed within an inch of her life.

He closed his eyes. --Oh, God.

\--Please. She's seven. She won't wake up. I'm _begging_ you.

He sighed, deeply, and looked into Daniel's eyes, and said over his shoulder to Mary, --I have to go somewhere. 

He looked back at Daniel. --Wait here. I'll be out in two minutes.

He went back in, started pulling on his shoes. Mary was watching him, with that little familiar line between here eyebrows that meant _troubled._ \--Why does he want you to go?

He tied his boots, pulled on his t-shirt and a battered canvas trenchcoat to cover the tattoos, grabbed his sunglasses. --He thinks I can do faith-healing. 

She laughed, in disbelief. --But you aren't even...like that, she finished lamely, seeing the look he gave her.

\--He seems to think so. I couldn't say no. He's desperate. He went back over to her and leaned down to kiss her. --I'll be back in about an hour. 

\--And you'll finish what you started?

\--Yes. And you'll finish what you just started. 

He nipped at her earlobe, moved to leave.

She stopped him, pulled him close and kissed him again, and put her hand down the front of his jeans. --Half an hour?

\--Oh... _Jesus,_ Mar...okay....half an....very soon, half an hour...

She smiled, pleased with herself, and let him go.

He decided he liked being a newlywed. He hoped it went on well into his sixties.

 

He followed Daniel, kept his hands in his pockets, hid behind his hair and his sunglasses. He ignored the man's prattle about his daughter's--symptoms. 

\--If you know Elijah is full of shit, why don't you call him on it? Or why don't you at least look for other work?

Daniel was dumbfounded, either by his language or his statement. --Well...I have to provide for my...family...

\--I read that in the marriage license they handed me, too. That's not what your reason is. That's an excuse you're reciting. I'm married, too. You don't see me out scamming people who are too stupid to know they're being taken. What you mean is you like the money more than you'd like to do the right thing.

\--That's not--

He'd had it with this idiot's rationalizations. The awkward silence had been better. --Look. _Shut the Hell up._ I'm doing this for Rebecca. I don't give a damn about you. You're a whore. So is Elijah. Walk faster.

He didn't speak again until they reached his house.

 

Rebecca was lying in a thin heap on her bed, like an antique rag doll. Her room was pink and white, with a picture of Jesus surrounded by fluffy white lambs hanging over her. She wasn't conscious. He hadn't even scanned her when he smelled it, the thick salt-sweet meaty scent of an infection. A pretty bad one, to be discernable out in her bedroom. 

He sniffed at her. 

He sat beside her, watching her for a long moment. 

Daniel stood just in the doorway, his wife a meek shadow behind him.

When he spoke, his voice was very soft, and absolutely terrible. He said six words.  
\--This child is dying of syphilis.

He took off his sunglasses. 

He looked at Daniel. 

Three more words.

\--So are you.

He put his hands on Rebecca, one on her forehead, one between her legs. He made it mercifully quick. 

The infection was easy. 

The rest of it was not.

He sheared off the memory of what had infected her, while he was at it, and stood up very slowly and walked towards Daniel with his hands out, and her disease burning in his eyes.

Daniel shook his head, mute with terror, seeing what the sunglasses had hidden,  
\--No...

He didn't even touch him. He didn't, want to touch him. He slammed it through the air. Daniel crumpled, made a single sound like a cry or a plea. 

He covered his face in his hands.

He put his glasses on again, walked past the ruin kneeling on the floor. --You may want to put him in a guest room, or the couch, until he dies. After a while, he's going to smell, he told Daniel's wife. --His outside is going to begin to match his inside.

He found their bathroom without asking, scrubbed his hands, and left.

Mary was waiting on the steps for him. --How is she?

He didn't answer her. He managed to climb past her, made it inside and into their bed before the tears started. He curled up small, wrapped his arms around his head, crying so hard he couldn't make any sound.

She didn't ask him. She rubbed his back, his shoulders. She let him cry himself out. 

\--Cry too much. You must think you married a queer or something, he said after a long time, sniffling.

\--You _did_ heal her, didn't you? she asked > Her voice was colored with unexpected religion.

He nodded into the pillows. --He raped her. Her _father._ Why is it always that? Why do people behave that way? I just can't imagine it, the kind of mind that would...

He couldn't go on. He wept. She held him.

\--I don't know, she said. --Maybe one day, we'll have a son. We can make sure there's at least one man in the world who knows right from wrong. Other than you.

\--You think I know right from wrong? He made an ugly sound that was not quite laughter. --I'm a dope fiend, I'm married to a sixteen-year-old, I never go to church...

\--You're beautiful. You care about the whole world. You've never hurt me, not even when you could have without getting caught. 

\--I healed you, he said, quietly. --You had pneumonia.

That startled her. She didn't stop touching him. --Oh...I don't remember. I wish I did. 

\--No. You don't want to remember. It...hurts, sometimes, when it's such a deep sickness. Do you believe me?

\--I checked the pills, she admitted, like she expected him punish her for her intelligence. --There were four antibiotics missing. The rest of them were full. I believe you.

\--Took two of them myself. Sometimes it spreads to me, he said.

\--It spreads...oh, God, did it spread to you, what happened to her?

\--Not the disease. I gave that to her bastard father. The...damage, in her mind...

She pushed him over on his back, and lay on top of him, smoothing his hair, kissing him. --Don't. Don't think about it.

\--I don't want to. I don't want to ever think about it.

\--Then don't. Think about this instead. 

She was kissing him again. She was a fast learner. He kissed her back, almost politely, and said against her mouth, --Not now. I'm not in the-

She moved against him, licked from his chin to his upper lip. Whatever he had been saying faded into irrelevance. 

He was almost vicious with her, not even bothering to take off their clothing, just rearranging what was necessary and fucking her, no foreplay, no gentleness. He held her hands over her head, looking down into her eyes. He knew he was hurting her. She was biting her lip to keep from screaming. He thought it was pain, until she leaned up to kiss him in furious passion, hurting him back. 

She wound her legs around him. She only closed her eyes at the end, shuddering. He didn't stop. He was trying to pour his demons into her with his semen, to let her purify him, or at least forgive him.

She was pushing at him, not yet upset, but getting that way. He moved from on top of her, lay gasping, fumbled one hand out. He stroked her stomach. --God, Mar. I'm sorry.

She took his hand, kissed his fingers. --Don't be. 

(23)

 

After that, there was one or two a month, sometimes more. The packages kept coming, set on Mary's--their--steps, marked with crosses. He quit resisting after a while. It was a way for him to support them. At least he was delivering what he was being paid for.

He healed arthritis, mono, one case of Crohn's disease, a dislocated vertebrae, a brain tumor, two cases of heart disease. A terrible gaping abdominal wound due to an accident with a tractor. God only know how they had managed that one. Sheer stupidity didn't seem like sufficient reason to explain it.

He was becoming a legend. 

People were coming from Clayton, Bethany, Nazareth, even Haven, the town that had wanted him hanged.

By now, everyone in Calvary knew him. Elijah sat behind Mary, in the town's one restaurant, a filthy hole-in-the-wall that had incredible cheeseburgers. He'd given a loud sermon, mostly pointed in their direction. His adoring clique threw in a hallelujah and an amen politely now and then, when he got particularly zealous about wizards and false prophets.

 _Think I should turn him into a frog?_ he'd whispered to Mary.

 _Why not a lizard instead? That's what he looks like,_ she'd murmured back, damn near making him anoint himself with his coffee. 

Elijah was the only one who seemed hostile. The other townspeople seemed either unconcerned or tolerant, when he was lucky. More often they were afraid of him, in a reverent sort of way. They avoided his eyes, lowered their voices when he was near, Sometimes if he turned his head too quickly, he would catch them looking, with something uncomfortably like worship in their eyes. 

_Especially women,_ he thought. Mary had noticed that. She actually put her arm around him with her hand on his hip in public, looking daggers at one offender in particular. He had leaned over, given her such a lewd kiss she had blushed, pushing him away, whispering, _careful._

 _So? We're married. They're looking. Let's give them something to watch. Entertain them, at least,_ he'd said back. She kept him away, pretending to be annoyed, looking pleased under the thin disguise.

 

One local case was completely unplanned, completely unrequested. He was in the town's little excuse for a hardware store, buying sandpaper and primer for the outside of the trailer. He planned to scrape off the worst of the rust, and cover it with as many coats of paint as he could manage.

There was a woman, and her little girl, two aisles over. The little girl stood with her head down. A black kerchief was folded into a triangle and tied over the lower half of her face, as if she were playing cowgirl or bandit or something. Except she wasn't.

This woman and her daughter were looking at the floor in the standard way. He walked towards them, slowly, because the mother was trembling. The little girl raised her eyes, looking out over the handkerchief. She didn't seem afraid.

He crouched in front of her, raised his hand to her bandage. She moved as if to pull away, a little startled. --It's okay, sweetheart. I won't hurt you, he said, in the softest voice he knew.

\--Don't take it off. I'm ugly under it, she said, the words so garbled they were almost unintelligible.

\--I can already see under it. You're not ugly.

He reached behind her tiny head, untied it, pulled it away.

Her upper lip and palate were split, up into her nose. Her mouth was twisted so badly that her teeth jutted out at angles that had left her lips cut and scabbed. She had perfect elfin cheekbones and fey-green eyes over this holocaust. 

His eyes filled with tears. He had found so much to weep over in this horrible fucking town. --How old are you, sweetheart?

\--Nine, she said, lisping horribly. He could watch the motion of her tongue, almost all the way back into her throat.

\--Please. Can you? her mother whispered, hardly daring to speak.

He had a terrible vision, then, of that same beast with a thousand eyes. A sea of people, with weeping sores, crooked limbs, bruised faces. A sea of pleading eyes, a sea of voices saying _please, can you?_ A sea of hands. A beast with a thousand diseases.

_They can't help it. Stop it. They can't help it--they're only human._

\--All right, dearest, he said to the girl, ignoring her mother. --I need you to do something for me, he told her. He made a funnel of his hand and pressed it against the wound of her mouth. --I'm going to count to three. When I get to three, I want you to breathe in for as long as you can. Okay?

She nodded against his hand, a little scared, still looking him in the eye.

He drew in a deep breath and counted. --One....two....three.

He put his mouth against his hand and breathed into her. 

She drew it in and started coughing.

Then, the first wet crack of bone breaking, the flesh around it tearing too, her entire jaw involved in the earthquake. The first vibrato scream. 

She convulsing, holding her hands over her face and shrieking. 

\--What have you _done?_ her mother was shouting at him.

\--It's only for a second. 

He turned away, still looking for coarse sandpaper in an absent kind of way. Mary was waiting, and he wanted to try and find someplace that he could buy flowers for her, or maybe perfume. 

\--You've killed her!

He rolled his eyes, turned back to the little girl. Sighed. --It's okay. Stand up, sweetheart. You're okay.

She stood up, shakily, and he pried her hands away from her face. Her mouth was whole, a perfect cupid's bow, no scars, not even a bruise. She investigated this new geography with her fingertips, and smiled the first human smile of her life. --Thanks, mister, she whispered, still shaping words around teratology that no longer existed. She turned and hid against her mother's knees.

\--You're welcome, he said, tiredly. It was pretty much the first _thank you_ he had gotten in months that he actually appreciated.

\--Here, he told her mother, offering her the handkerchief he was still holding. --Do you want this back?

She stared at him, still shaking.

He sighed, tucked it into the pocketbook over her arm, and wandered around until he found the sandpaper. He picked up what he needed, paid the clerk with a hundred-dollar-bill.

\--I can't change this, the man told him, looking terrified.

\--Keep it. Add whatever she buys, if she buys anything, he said, gesturing behind him.

He turned away, and left in search of roses. He heard the mother go into hysteria behind him. Jesus. Some people.

 

He told Mary about it, a week later, while they sat in their customary site on the kitchen floor, eating Chinese food that he had driven fifty miles to bring her. She had strange requests, lately, driving him insane looking for fried rice, peaches, jalapeno peppers, boiled peanuts, watermelon.

\--Sarah's little girl? The one with the....problem with her mouth?

He nodded. He felt embarrassed, for some unknown reason.

She gave him one of those souldeep smiles that cut him down to the bone, holding chopsticks frozen in her hand. --I love you. Think of what that means to her. Think of all the things that she never would have had, that she might have, now.

He shrugged. --Think of the pain of that, thirty seconds...

\--Think of all the times YOU go through that for someone you don't even really know. I know you feel everything you do to them. Now stop this. You are doing a beautiful thing. Quit trying to, talk yourself out of it. 

\--I don't want it. 

That was more than he had ever told another living soul. 

 

(24)

 

It would have been okay, if their lives had gone on in that way. There was enough money, more than either of them had ever had. He had the trailer leveled, painted, had electricity re-installed, complete with light bulbs, and he turned them on whenever the Hell he felt like, and nobody ever said anything to him about it. He gave Spectre shoeboxes full of money, and had filled his entire tool shed with gasoline cans (and three fire extinguishers.) He bought a new bed that made the dresser almost inaccessible but made their frequent violent and enthusiastic lovemaking less likely to end up with one or the other bruised against the corner of a table.

It was home. 

Mary seemed to have developed a new hobby, in addition to requesting impossible to find food in large quantities. Lately she had started bursting into tears for no apparent reason. She was alternately irrational and incredibly affectionate. He loved her no matter which way she was behaving at the moment. 

It was, new, to able to wake up from a nightmare, beside someone who would wake up too, and tell you _it wasn't real, i'm here, shhhh, it's okay, go to sleep._ He never remembered what the dreams were about. He had questioned her about whether or not he talked in his sleep, and when she told him no, he believed her.

He learned that showering together was fun, if not exactly a useful way to actually get clean. He learned that fighting with paint, even clear paint, was a bad idea. He learned that if he licked Mary's collarbone, so lightly it almost tickled her, it would drive her out of her mind. He learned that when she bit his neck or his shoulders hard enough to bruise it drove him out of his mind.

And one night, he learned the most incredible thing he had ever heard in his entire life.

(25)

 

\--I'm pregnant.

He was lying in bed with her, sticky, and waiting for sleep. When he realized what she had said it startled his eyes wide open, snapped him awake like cold water.

\-- _What?_

\--I'm pregnant, she said again. 

They were both sitting up, then, both talking at once, both half-crying with, oh, hysteria. He was kissing every part of her at once and laughing. --Oh, God, Mar. I'm sorry. Does it hurt? Can you feel it in there? 

\--Don't be sorry, you idiot. Of course it doesn't hurt. I can't feel it, I just....know..

\--I made you pregnant? You're pregnant? There are three of us, there's a _baby_ in here? He was shaking all over, his heart slamming like he'd done too much cocaine. The room was listing to port, and he was afraid he might faint. He had not known it was, possible, for him to....

\--Right under your hands. I think it's about the size of a tadpole right now. Oh, God, I was so afraid you'd be angry, or make me get rid of it...

\-- _No,_ Mar. Oh, God, never. 

He leaned over and kissed her all over her stomach, whispered, his mouth against her skin, so softly that even she couldn't hear it, _hi baby. I can't wait to meet you._

She felt his lips move. --Are you talking to it?

\--Yeah. 

He wanted to go outside and tell everyone in the goddamned town.

\--What did you say?

\--I told it that its mother is a dear sweet beautiful geek who can't French inhale.

They fell asleep curled up like cats in a patch of sunlight. 

He had his hand over her stomach, his fingertips moving in slow circles even after he was sleeping.

(26)

 

He made her stay at home in bed the next morning, despite her protests that she wasn't an invalid. He also forbade her to smoke anymore pot, and took all he could find with him to keep her from temptation. 

He made it out to the truck, thought a minute, went back inside and made her tell him how long she had known. When she told him, he counted back on his fingers, realized they had smoked twice since then, flipped her over his knee, smacked her twice, hard. After that, when she stopped sulking, he kissed her, and drove like a lunatic to Spectre's.

There were three cars already outside Spectre's sprawling house. He pulled in, and as an afterthought put his sunglasses on. 

Spectre met him at the door, holding two glasses of lemonade. --Here.

\--How did you know I was coming? he asked.

Spectre smiled. --Sometimes I just know things, remember?

He decided he would wait to tell him about Mary. --What are all these cars?

\--It's funny you should ask that, Spectre said. --They're here to see you.

 

There were seven people crowded into Spectre's living room, not counting Jordan and Zillah. He walked in, expecting for some surreal reason for all of them to stand up and yell _surprise!!!_

 _If they did that, I'd probably have a heart attack,_ he thought.

They didn't yell anything. They just sort of sat there, staring at him like they were seeing a ghost. None of them were locals. They were dressed in the usual black, and all of them looked road weary and like they would have given just about anything for a toke.

\--Hi, he said. He had never felt like such an idiot in his life.

One of the men, a whipthin tanned creature that seemed to be their leader, stood up. He was trembling. --My name is Paul. It's an honor to meet you, he said, and held out his hand.

They shook. He was beginning to realize what all this was about. He looked at Spectre, telepathically saying _I'll get you for this. You just wait._

\--I guess you guys want me to, um, heal you or something. 

\--No sir. A boy really, sweating and nervous. --We want to help you with your ministry.

He sighed. --I don't fucking _have_ a ministry. That's the problem. That's _your_ problem, all of you, everybody I've ever met on this godforsaken planet. You want ministers. You want somebody to come along and tell you what the Hell to do about all this. You want someone to fix it. You're someone. You fix it. Be your own minister. Be a church of one.

They were listening to him, rapt, devouring every word with such hunger that he could feel the touch of their teeth. He was preaching, he realized. He was doing exactly what he'd been preaching about not doing. He didn't care. Somebody had to give them a clue.

\--Look. Figure out what it is that you're looking for in religion. Is it belonging? Is it love, acceptance, money? Is it purpose? 

He reached out to Paul, still standing there like a mannequin, and tapped the man on his chest, and then on his forehead. --Look here. Look in your heart. Look in your head. Look in your dreams. That's where you'll find what you're looking for. If it isn't inside you, you will never find it anywhere.

They were still giving him looks that were either blank or adoring, depending on your point of view. --If you want to belong, find somewhere you belong and stay there no matter how hard you have to fight to do it. 

None of them were getting it at all. --Find your own truth. I'm not your savior. You are.

He walked out onto Spectre's back porch, and lit a joint. He was still holding the glass of lemonade. He settled into the cushioned wicker chair, took a long deep drag. _I don't want to be this. Somebody has to do it, I know that, why does it have to be ME?_

Spectre came and stood leaning in the doorway, amused. --You blew their minds. They're out there whispering about the theology of what you just said. 

\--They'll never get it, will they?

\--Give them a little time. A little mercy. I finally got it, didn't I? I used to want to lick your feet, too.

He held up his booted foot, waved it in Spectre's general direction. Spectre laughed and shoved his foot away. --Freak.

He sighed. --To do this, I have to lead them into not _needing_ a leader at all. I have no idea how to do that.

\--The words will be there when you need them.

\--Mary would have a fit if she saw all these... _disciples_

\--How is she? I thought you would've brought her.

He let himself grin. Ah, that wonderful all-over physical growl that only testosterone could provide. --She's pregnant.

Spectre stared at him, then whooped in joy, dragged him out of the chair, picked him up in a hug so fervent that his feet came off the floor, and spun him around, making a sticky arc of lemonade and nearly crushing the joint. --OH MY GOD! he was yelling, laughing.

\--Put me down, you lunatic, he said, dripping lemonade--it was in his _hair,_ for chrissakes--and laughing too.

\--How far along is she? Is she sick? What will you call it?

He pulled his wet shirt away from his chest, grimacing, hitting the joint again. --Two months or so, no, and we're going to name it after you. How does Queer Circus Freak strike you as a tribute to my son's favorite...what will you be? Cousin?

That degenerated into a lemonade fight, which in turn evolved into a wrestling match.

His disciples finally got up the balls to come looking for him, and found their Messiah on the floor, sitting on Spectre's chest and rubbing an ice cube over his face. 

(27)

 

The disciples set up a strange kind of a temporary town near Spectre's house. It was too big to really be called a camp. The rumor mill in Calvary was already churning like mad, and as more and more tents went up, the tension level skyrocketed.

\--I don't like it, Mary said to him. They were at Spectre's, sitting on his steps. Actually he was sitting on the steps, and she was sitting in his lap. He had his arms around her, one hand over her stomach. --This morning there were twenty-three offering packages on the steps. I almost fell over them. And people are beginning to really talk.

\--Well, what do you want me to do, Mar? Tell them to take their balls and go home? He kissed her, behind her ear, and bit her earlobe. 

She squirmed away, unwilling to be distracted. --Some of them are starting to look like you.

That was all his little phobia of being unreal needed--fifty people done up like him, his own face looking back like infinity mirrors in a funhouse, like a bad Halloween joke. --A lot of them are taking it too far. Some of them are just kids, Mar, dying to believe in something.

\--Well, why does that something have to be you? I want you to be my husband and our baby's father and _nothing else!_

He hugged her. It scared him, the crying fits. She would get _violently_ upset, sometimes sobbing until she made herself nauseous, over something like a broken coffee cup or a paper cut. Sometimes he tried to distract her, hold her when she would let him near her. Once she'd locked herself in the bathroom and cried till he sat against the door, talking through it to her. _I love you. I'm sorry. Please come out. It's okay. It's all okay._

\--Why does it have to be you? What are you, anyway? Are you what they say you are? she whispered to him, finally.

\--Mary, I have a skill. One skill. I can sometimes heal the sick. Spectre has a skill. He grows the best weed I have ever smoked. And you do that thing with your tongue--

She elbowed him hard in the ribs. --I'm _serious._

\--I am too, Mar, he said. He had been careful, so very careful not to have to lie to her.

\--I just wish you wouldn't encourage them. That's all.

He wished he wouldn't encourage them either. Something drove him to do it. He would go to their little shantytown every night or so, and....well, preach. Maybe an hour, maybe two. 

He had tried to stay away, for Mary's sake. He would go outside for a joint to keep the smoke away from her and the baby, or to take a piss while she was taking a two-hour bath, and the next thing he knew he would be in the damn truck. Every fucking night. 

He did a few healings, exclusively in private. He wasn't going to put on an exhibition like that bastard salesman Elijah. The thought of doing something that was that intimate for himself and the one he was healing in _public,_ on a fucking stage. The point was to heal, not to get up and show off. He didn't have anything to prove.

\--It's something I have to do. Can you understand that, Mar? Can you at least try?

She turned her head into his shoulder. --I'm jealous of them, she said, muffled, and sniffled.

He smiled. Testosterone. --Don't be. You're the one I go home with, remember? You're the one I gave my favorite ring to. I give them time. I give you...Jesus, Mar, I give you my whole _self._ I'm yours.

That made her happy again. It tore something up in his chest as soon as he'd said it, and he kissed her so she wouldn't see the expression on his face. He had meant that, every single word with his entire soul, but he wasn't sure he was his own to give away. He wasn't sure that hadn't been a lie.

 

(28)

 

It was a miracle that the Elijah incident hadn't happened sooner. 

Real miracles were bad for business when Elijah had built himself and Aaron an empire on a foundation of fake miracles. He was dangerous competition. The money that people insisted on giving him was money they weren't giving to Elijah. 

He really thought that Elijah could have been more creative, though. More considerate, of Mary at least, if not of him. The entire town knew she was pregnant, and nobody suggested to Elijah that it would be an asshole way to behave, coming to the house at night with a small crowd, bearing torches. _Torches,_ for chrissakes. He knew damn well that the hardware store had flashlights. What silliness.

He knew, in one of the vivid flashes of clarity that were the only kind of vision he ever had, that they were coming. 

Mary was reading _The Stranger,_ sprawled out across the bed, and he was rubbing the small of her back with one hand and jotting random thoughts in his journal with the other. 

\--Elijah and about twenty of his cronies are on their way here. Nothing terribly bad is going to happen, but there will be a lot of shouting and a lot of ridiculous behavior. I want you to wait for me with Spectre. I'll be there, as soon as I'm finished here.

She had never heard that tone of voice before, and she knew instinctively that you didn't question it. She got up, pulled her dress down, put her shoes on. Shaking. 

\--Come, soon. Her eyelashes were wet. --The gun is--

\--I know where the gun is, sweetheart. I won't need it. Drive carefully, but drive fast. I don't want you on the road when they get here. 

_In case our child can hear what I'm going to do._

\--You'll be alone--

\--I'm never alone, he said, touching her face with his fingertips. He kissed her mouth and her stomach, and gave her the keys.

He listened until the sound of the engine faded. Then he dressed in the tuxedo jacket and red shirt he had worn to their wedding, painted his face with Mary's black eyeliner, brushed out his hair, put on his boots. Waited.

 

Elijah was parading down the dirt road making a full-blown idiot of himself. He was wearing the white suit, and he had a gold (gold!) shirt on underneath it. And a white tie. And he was holding a torch over his head like he was advertising the fucking Statue of Liberty. And the twenty or so cronies were following him like Klan members in the middle of Georgia.

It was like he thought of this as, a photo op.

He was sitting on the steps, smoking a joint and waiting. He was wearing his sunglasses. 

Elijah came right up to him, stopped less than three feet away. Apparently he hadn't planned on his victim waiting, dressed in full regalia. He had probably expected to drag him out of bed naked and groggy and blinking. He just stood there, twitching with what was probably supposed to be righteous indignation.

He exhaled smoke through his teeth, held the joint out to Elijah. --Want a hit? It's good shit. Very mellow.

Elijah struck the joint of out of his hand.

That was his second mistake. The first had been the gold shirt.

He stood up.

He took off his sunglasses, and let them fall deliberately from his hand, and stepped on them, crunching them in to a mangled lump of plastic. He didn't look up until he was finished.

Elijah stepped back.

This time he didn't bother to smooth out the edges, round off the corners. --If you didn't come here to smoke out, Elijah, exactly what do you want? 

\--You know why I'm here. I know about these false wonders you've been perpetrating on the innocent; I know about that cult of hellbound idolaters camped out there in the desert. I know you. I have come because it is the _will of God that I come here into the house of one demon possessed--_

\--Stop, he said.

Elijah did. He actually could not speak again, and that was rather funny to watch, the frustration and fear building in his eyes. He tried not to enjoy it. He didn't like doing things like that. Did he?

\--If you can't even make a coherent sentence, you don't need to talk to me . I don't have time for it. You want to talk like adults? Like sane human beings? Go ahead.

The preacher's mouth snapped shut, and he immediately opened it again. --By the power of the name of Jesus I compel the demons to come out of this man! he shouted, and held out his hand.

 _It's not what you call me, it's what I answer to,_ he thought. Where had he heard that before? An African proverb? It had stuck in his brain in a secret place, and it whispered to him now, and he'd had _enough_ of this bullshit, and he was well past annoyed and into the realm of _angry._

He grabbed Elijah's hand and spun him around so that his arm was behind his back, with the preacher's hand damn near between his shoulderblades.

Elijah made a sound like a teenaged girl who had slammed her finger in a car door.

He took the torch away so that the idiot didn't set fire to anything, threw it out into the sand, and looked at Elijah's little lieutenants. --I can break his arm before you can take me down, and every goddamn one of you knows he can't heal it. Step back.

They did, the motion strange, shuffling. 

\--You let me go! Elijah, flailing.

\--I will. After I'm finished with you. It was your idea to talk to me, remember? You get your wish. We talk. Poof. But not here. We're going for a little walk, my friend, down to that idiotic tent you call a church. Start walking, he ordered.

He kept Elijah hunched over. They walked. The enforcers trailed along behind them, dumbfounded and confused. This definitely wasn't going according to plan.

He made Elijah walk a little faster, pulled on his arm a little harder. He had no idea what he was going to do when he got there. The words would come when he needed them.

At the door of the tent, he turned to the entourage. --If one of you so much as looks in here, the next thing to come out of this door will be his body. And I sure as Hell will _not_ bring him back.

He pushed Elijah in, closed the flap. They didn't follow. 

\--You're going to pay for this, Elijah choked out.

\--It's funny you should choose those exact words. Your entire little mind thinks like a bank account, doesn't it? Pay, owe, reap, sow. You're a salesman selling bullshit painted a pretty color, you know that? You figured out that religion is the only foolproof pyramid scheme in the world, and you set yourself right on top of it, didn't you? You're Aaron's financier and his little pawn, and you have this entire town under your thumb. Except for me. So let's get on down to the altar and get a little Jesus, shall we?

He had to admit to himself he was really, enjoying, this.

He dragged Elijah down the aisle, until he was in front of the long table across the front of the church. He kicked Elijah in the thigh, hard, so that he fell to his knees, and kept his arm twisted behind him.

He started going through the preacherman's pockets with his free hand. Front right, front left, back right, back left, then the pocket of the tuxedo, and started dropping money onto the table. Twenties. Hundreds. Fifties. About six pounds of nickels and quarters and pennies and dimes, spinning down onto the tablecloth, some of them rolling off and hitting the wooden floor.

\--You ready for this?

\--I'm not afraid of you, Elijah said. His voice was wet. 

-So here we go, a little redemption. Here's your line. I want you to say: _I fucking worship money, hallelujah._ That's your line. Go ahead.

Elijah still didn't understand this. --God will punish you for this, you--

He broke Elijah's right index finger. Just twisted it around until it broke. The scream the preacher made was extremely satisfying. He thought of Isaac, the boy with the collapsed lung and disappointed eyes, and pushed the black smear of his hair out of his face. --That's one. You've got nine left, Elijah, and let me tell you, thumbs hurt a lot. Say it.

Sobbing. -- _But I don't worship money and you JUST CAN'T DO THIS_

\--Surprise. I am doing it. He folded Elijah's right thumb, bending it hard enough to hurt like Hell, not hard enough to break it. Yet.  
\-- _ALL RIGHT! Don't! I worship money, all right? ALL RIGHT?_

\--You left out two words, he said. 

Snap.

It took Elijah a minute to quit making this idiotic sort of a chicken noise, but he finally managed to say it. --I...fucking worship....money.

\--Say, Hallelujah.

\--Hallelujah, he said, weeping, broken.

He healed Elijah's hand--the preacher screamed again at that, because the sensation was not kind to those consumed by darkness. And he reached up and pulled the tablecloth off, showering Elijah with fluttering bills and clattering change--and dropped it over his head. He looked down at the man, under the cloth, curled up small, sobbing, and kicked him just once, in the tailbone, hard. --I forgive you, Elijah. And God forgives you. But I can't fix what's wrong with you. Only you can do that, and I think it might be too late. There's not enough of your soul left to grow back.

Elijah flinched with every word.

\--I just want you to know that even though I do forgive you, I still don't like you. And that is the ugliest fucking shirt I have ever _seen,_ by the way. Tell your mother to stop dressing you like one of the Bee Gees.

Elijah dragged himself up onto his knees, clutching his now perfectly okay hand, sobbing, his face streaked with snot and tears. There were tracks in his pancake makeup. --You bastard!

\--You're right about that one. My mother never married my father, he said, a little joke just for him. And his father. If his father was listening.

\--I'll get you for this! _I'll KILL you for this!_

\--I know that already too. He was exhausted. He felt scoured out and empty and sad. --If it's the last thing you do. Have a nice day. Enjoy being a high-priced whore while you can. It gets pretty ugly on the way down.

He left. The enforcers were crowded outside, pale and uncertain. One of them dared to say, --Did you kill him?

He sighed. --No, of course not. One of you might want to go in first and clean him up alone for the sake of whatever dignity he has left. ALL of you who heard that might want to do some hard thinking about why you work for a creature like that.

He went home. None of them followed him.

Jordan was waiting on his deathtrap of a motorcycle. --You okay?

\--Yes. Are you my ride?

Jordan nodded. --Are we gonna get chased?

\--No. It'll take them at least an hour to help the poor bastard fix his makeup. Is Mary okay?

\--She's crying.

He sighed again, climbed on the motorcycle behind Jordan. --Don't drive like an idiot tonight, all right, Jay? I can't take it right now.

 

(29)

 

He had no way of knowing if Mary was hysterical or not. As soon as he walked in the door she went into Spectre's bedroom and locked the door. She wouldn't come out, and she didn't answer his pleading or his raging.

\--She's just pregnant. She'll come out in a minute, Spectre said, almost apologetic. Jordan was standing there scared and ready to cry if any shouting started.

He couldn't deal with it. He couldn't deal with any of them, and he left the house and walked over to the camp of his worshippers.

 

Two of Elijah's lieutenants had immediately converted.

By the time he got there, the story had evolved into a kind of _Star Wars_ pyrotechnic battle, complete with himself chasing Elijah through the street shooting bolts of energy at him like fucking Gandalf.

They had built a little...okay, it was a stage, as embarrassing as it was. He stepped up there. 

\--Sit down and shut up. All of you. 

He only had to say it once. Over five hundred people, sitting there like it was a rock concert or a love-in, silent and waiting.

\--First, I did not shoot fireballs at anybody. We had an argument. I told him a few things about himself, and then I came out here. I broke two of his fingers. That's all. Any questions?

\--Did you heal his fingers? someone called out from his left.

\--I did. I broke them, and I owed him at least that much.

\--When are we going to march into Calvary?

That one horrified him so much that for a minute or two he couldn't even answer. He noticed Zillah, near the front, smoking and staring at him with something sly and sad in his exotic eyes.

\--We're NOT. My GOD, have you ALL MISSED THE POINT OF THIS? _Still?_

None of them had an answer. Some of them looked away from him, in guilt or shame or fear. 

\--We're not marching into Calvary or anywhere. We're not having a civil war. We're not having a revolution. I'm not running for fucking mayor. 

He grabbed a blonde boy from just in front of the platform, pulled him onstage and spun him around to face the congregation. --This is the point. Right here, he said, smacking the poor kid on top of his head to emphasize every word. --This is where the revolution MUST happen. That is the ONLY thing that will change the world.

He pushed his hostage away. --You don't need me. You don't need an army. You were born with every single fucking thing you need to change this world--five senses and the capacity to reason. You don't want other people controlling your life. Don't let them. You don't want to live in a theocracy? Then don't. It's as simple as that. Leave,. Destroying cities and having a war, whatever the Hell this bullshit is you seem to think we're here for....none of that is going to make this world any better. 

None of them answered.

\--Stop dressing like me, stop worshipping me, stop praying to me. Be your own gods. Go home and tell other people this secret: the secret of God is that he's in the fucking mirror. 

Murmurs. Nobody moved.

\--Go. I'm not going to preach here any more. I refuse to be your excuse for not believing in yourself.

\--Don't you love us? 

He had no idea who'd said it.

\-- _Yes,_ he said, crying now, tears of exhaustion and loneliness and everything inside him that was heavy and gray. --More than you could ever possibly comprehend. That's _why_ I won't let you do this to yourselves. I came here to help you save yourselves, not to be the next religion. 

He stepped down. God, his head hurt. 

 

\--Have you lost your mind? 

\--Mary. Keep your voice down. Everyone can hear you. 

\--Good! God forbid I should make a fool of you in front of your groupies! she hissed at him. –Do you have any idea what could happen to you for something like this?

Something angry and proud activated itself in his brain, and he snapped, --There are at least three times as many of _us_ as there are of _them._ Everybody from every township for six hundred miles either owes me something, or loves someone who does. Not much is going to happen to me against my will, ever again.

\--Is _that_ what you think? You think Elijah is going to play by the rules? 

\--If he doesn't--

\--He'll come after you and then he'll come after _me!_ She was almost screaming now. –You haven’t heard what they say about you! 

\--I know they've started calling me Reverend, he said. He let her go. Turned his back to her, pressed hard against his temples. –I don’t encourage it. I hate it.

\--That’s _not_ all they’re calling you. She looked up, blinking hard, fighting back tears. --Some of them think you're... _Jesus,_ or, something.....

\--And you think they're wrong. 

He was so tired that even his mouth felt heavy.

–Elijah is furious.

\-- _FUCK ELIJAH!_

He turned on her, suddenly, making a violent, angry gesture in the air that scared her into silence. 

\-- _Fuck Calvary._ Fuck everybody’s goddamned opinion. I’m doing what I have to, and what pisses me off is that _you know that,_ and you’re putting me through this when I need you to support me the most! Do you think that’s easy for me? 

 

He waved behind him in the direction of the congregation outside. –Do you think it’s easy for me to stand up in front of hundreds of people that scare me half to death and try to explain things I don’t understand _how i know_

His voice gave out on him. He made a _fuck this_ slash with one hand, turned his back on her and left the tent. 

Paul was outside, with his arm around Jordan’s shoulders. Probably Jordan had heard the shouting. –Reverend--

\-- _Don’t_ call me that, he ordered. He pushed aside Paul’s hand. –Get out of my way.

He walked out of the camp, almost running. The sky was clotted with clouds, and the wind was kicking the sand into dust devils. He could hear Mary calling to him, behind him. He didn’t look back, and he didn’t slow down. 

She ran until she caught up with him, and clutched at his arm. –Wait—

He turned too fast, turned too angry, and shoved her away from him, hard, so hard she almost fell. –Mar, _don’t._

She cringed away from him, her eyes stricken. –Is it true?

\--Mar—

\-- _Is it true what they call you, is it TRUE?_

Then, there was only the two of them staring at each other, almost enemies, and the wind, and the heavy graygreen of the night sky.

He drew in a deep breath, his eyes stinging, his throat aching. He looked up, and that same perverse, cruel thing twisted in his stomach.

He raised his hands, his palms turned up like some kind of hieroglyph. 

He reached up and out, and said, -- _Now._

The rain dropped on them in a single furious sheet, so quickly and so hard that Mary screamed, threw her arms over her head, and ducked. She ended up crouching on the ground, her face hidden, shaking, instantly soaked to the skin. 

\--What, Mary? What do they call me? he yelled at her, over the din of the rain. –Are they saying I'm Christ? Or a witch? Maybe this week I'm the Devil himself. Is that what they call me? _Is it?_

He was sorry the second he’d finished saying it. –Mary? 

She only stayed that way, crying. 

He pulled off his trenchcoat. It was soaked too. His logic wasn’t currently at its best.

–I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. 

He went to cover her with his coat. She made a horrified noise, and flinched away from him, her hands flailing at the air to drive him away. She stumbled up to her feet, yelled something at him with her face covered again, and he couldn’t hear it. He was pretty sure the word _witch_ was part of it. 

\--You don’t really think that, do you? He tried to touch her again. 

Her face twisted in something like fury. She turned and ran away from him.

He was so dumbfounded by that, he only stood there, holding out his jacket like an idiot, and staring after her. After a moment, he realized she had no intention of stopping.

He shouted after her, --God damn it, Mary! and the wind snatched his voice away. He ran after her, shoving his arms back in the sleeves of his coat. He slipped, slid along on one knee in the wet sand. _I’ll kill her. I’ll carry her home over my fucking shoulder and embarrass the Hell out of her._  
The rain was so heavy he couldn’t really see more than thirty feet in front of him. It was getting darker, fast. 

He kept calling to her, alternating between pleading and apologies, and threats and furies, until he finally had to stop for breath. He yelled her name one more time. Nothing.

\--Damn it, he said to himself, and reached up and shoved his dripping hair out of his face, wiped at the water pouring into his eyes. It was the baby. Hormones. 

In the middle of a goddamned _storm._

She was probably already nice and dry and safe at the house. He had every intention of going there and doing something truly uncomfortable to her, as soon as he figured out where he was.

Now, _there_ was a nasty thought.

_Don’t panic. It’s pouring, so it’s not like you have to worry about dehydration or a heat stroke. Not that you have to worry about either of those anyway._

Not yet, anyway. He knew that his strange body could endure a lot, but he knew that even he had limits. He could wander for weeks, if he couldn’t get his bearings.

.--Fuck, he said to nobody, dismally. He spun in a slow circle. Rain. Shadow. Sand. Little currents of water carving tiny riverbeds in the sand. 

He didn't dare stop the rain. There was a certain consequence to a large effect like that. To make a sudden change so soon could be disastrous.

He started off in the direction most of the water seemed to be heading.

(30)

 

He walked for a lot longer than he’d expected to. Nothing looked familiar, and nothing looked different. What if he was going in the completely wrong direction? Should he stop? Wait? Turn around? 

_Zillah. He could hear me. I know he could. I don’t know how. I just know he could._

He shook himself out of it. Weakness. _Fuck that,_ he thought, disgusted with himself. He wasn’t going to ask that bastard for anything. He couldn’t afford to owe Zillah a favor. And Jordan would have freaked. He could get himself out of this. Hell, he had gotten himself into it, hadn’t he?

There was something ahead of him. He couldn’t tell what. The rain had gotten worse, slicing down in stinging cold slivers. All he could make out were tall, dark shapes, like dead trees. He squinted, trying to shield his burning eyes, walking faster, stumbling a little.

The toe of his boot stubbed into something jutting up out of the sand. A stick, or a tree root, probably, unearthed by the rain. Half-annoyed, he bent down—God only knew why—and picked it up. It was too heavy, and he had to yank at it, pulling with his entire back, to pull it up out of the ground. 

It was a bone.

He stared at it, his eyes startled wide open, and then he made an awful noise and dropped it, convulsively, stepping back, quickly. He was shuddering, scrubbing his hands on the wet cloth of his coat. 

_Stop it. It just startled you. It’s just a bone. It can’t hurt you._

He waited a minute or two, breathing hard, and finally bent down again, still revolted, and picked it up gingerly with only his fingertips. It was the radius, the thick bone in the forearm, and the end of it, the part that should have connected with the elbow, was broken off, jagged.

He stood up again, still holding it. His face was very still. He walked forward again, slowly.

They weren’t trees.

They were crosses.

He looked down at the bone in his hand again. Not a crucifixion. The crosses were only about ten feet tall, some a little bigger, none of them really big enough to be…functional. Wood was too hard to come by, here, for that.

It wasn’t a graveyard, either. 

He took the bone in both hands, gripped it as hard as he could, closed his eyes and

_(pulled looked asked went)_

and Hell unfolded around him.

The world fell sideways, and took him with it. He was about to scream, trying to brace himself. There was nothing to hold on to. Before he could draw another breath, he was standing in the same place, in a different place.

The rain had stopped.

The sky was a muddy graybrown, and it was the wrong shape, more like a cylinder than Earth’s smooth round dome. The sun was a dark red ball, five times bigger than it was supposed to be, sitting heavy and wounded on the horizon, so dim he could look straight at it. The air was dense, almost too thick to breathe, radiating the way heat sometimes did off the sand, except that there was no heat. There was no wind. Everything was still.

There were figures moving, farther down the hill, where the crosses were scattered like broken teeth.

He tried to call out. There was no sound. And he ran towards them, shouting, and he could hear nothing, nothing at all. The silence was total. 

_You shouldn’t be here._

It wasn’t a voice. It was like remembering a voice he had never heard. It seemed to come from behind him, and he turned, already backing away from whoever—or whatever—it was.

There were two of them. The one who was looking at him was wearing a plain black shirt, black pants, and a long leather coat. He had shoulder-length black hair, and his face was painted with a black smile. His eyes were luminous, and gentle. 

The other one was looking out towards the sun. His hair was black, too, long, woven through with silver thread. His face was painted with blue glyphs, and he wore a strange vivid blue suit that seemed to be half-feathers and half-bandages. He spoke without looking, in that same voiceless way. _It’s too late, Luke. He’s already here._

Luke smiled at him, ignoring his companion. _You know the dead are off limits. If we leave you here you might never find your way back._

He shook his head, not understanding. Who are you?

 _We’re angels who got kicked off the head of the pin for our language. And so are you,_ the blue one said, dripping mockery.

 _Erik,_ Luke warned. Erik shrugged. 

_You don’t like me, do you?_ he thought at Erik.

Erik’s eyes moved in his direction, almost in surprise. _I never said that. You and I have never gotten along. Call it sibling rivalry._

_I don’t understand._

_I don’t care if you don’t understand,_ Erik told him. _You couldn’t understand it even if I did explain it to you. You don’t have room in that human brain you’re wearing._

 _Your voices are exactly the same,_ he thought at Erik. _Why? What are you?_

 _Binary stars,_ said Erik.

 _Friends,_ said Luke. _Guides. You can’t stay here._

He looked back at the crosses. There were figures there, wandering in aimless patterns. _Who are they?_

 _They’re dead souls,_ Luke answered.

Erik laughed at that one. _They’re not all dead. They're all trapped. Like you._

He’d heard enough. He turned and started down the hill, towards the crosses.

_Wait! Don’t go down there!_

_Listen! They’re not nice anymore! They’re not human anymore!_  
He didn’t bother to turn around. _I want to know what this place is, and I’m tired of riddles. And I can find my own way out._

 

He made it to the edge of the little forest of crosses. The ground was cracked and rocky here, splattered with brown straggly grass. He looked back. Luke was looking down at him with his hands in his pockets. Erik was still staring into the dying sun. The Hell with them.

 _Hello? Can you hear me?_ he thought at the souls. 

They all looked up at him in unison. They were strange, faded people, all of them old. He walked into the middle of them, moving slowly, keeping his hands slightly raised, palms up. _Do you need—_

Someone touched his shoulder. He turned, irritated, expecting Luke or Erik. 

He didn’t know how to think a scream.

Two eyes, one hazel, one white.

Then, he saw that it wasn’t himself. This man was ancient, beyond ancient

and the man raised one trembling arm, covered with the ruin of his tattoos, and spoke the only sound he had heard in this place. _–LIVING._

And then they were on him, and then they were in him.

 

Flash:

he was seventeen and his name was Stefan and his hair in his eyes was blond blond and they were holding him down and his wrist nose knee were broken and something struck him in the side with unbelievable force and blood splattered onto his face warm and his ribs splintered away from his spine sending shards of bone into his lungs liver spleen

and he screamed through liquid and fell onto his back, convulsing, and he looked up and all he saw was an iron mallet painted red before it struck him in the stomach and something thick and soft and hot and heavy exploded up into his throat and everything in him burst open leaking

 

_(--stop it--)_

 

and he was thirty-two and his name her name was Anna, she had two children and they thought her youngest boy was not her husband’s and they were right and her fingers were already broken when they set her on fire

 

_(--STOP I CAN’T--)_

 

and he was fifteen and gay, tied with wet leather string and left for the sun to kill

_(don’t)_

and he was sixty, mercifully shot in the back of the head for heresy because he had said that he didn’t think God hated anyone, and he felt so cold his feet kept kicking he didn’t know why and his back hurt from lying on the hard ground and they were walking away and cranial fluid was soaking the collar of his shirt and he was trying to sit up before everything went green

 

_(STOP IT STOP STOP I CAN’T I—)_

_(get out)_

_oh god i can’t_

and luke erik they shoved him

 

\--get out, he rasped.

He was lying on his face on the ground with his knees folded under him. His mouth was full of sand. His nose was bleeding, and his eyes were streaming something thicker than tears. Mary was shaking him, trying to drag him to his feet, sobbing. –Spectre! Jordan! Over here, he’s over here…oh my God…

\--Out. Of here. Get me out of here, he choked out to her, groping at her, trying to push himself up on his hands and knees. She took his hand, and she was dabbing at the blood on his face. The rain dripping off his chin was dyed pink. –Mary, get me—

 

Flash:

he was the executioner this time, a woman with terrified eyes standing on a wooden platform beside him. Someone handed him a thing like a pillowcase made of rough cloth, and he took it and put it over her head. Her hair was the color of honey, damp with sweat, soft as spiderweb on his fingers, and his fingers were heavy with rings, the wrong rings, gold rings

and the lever was easy, so easy to pull

and her dress billowed out when she fell, and the snap was a snap crunch gorgeous, oh god, all through him like a dark new flavor of orgasm

 

_Elijah. I’m that bastard Elijah. He was an executioner. He still is. That’s who I’m inside. Elijah._

_I’m not Elijah, I am, I AM_

 

Spectre slapped him again, and shook him, and he was inside his own skin again, lying on Spectre’s couch, soaking fucking wet, feeling like he’d been hit by a truck. He opened his eyes. –Mary. 

\--I’m right here, she said, sounding like she’d been crying for weeks. He pushed himself up on his elbows, and saw her sitting on the floor in front of the armchair. Jordan was in the chair, curled up small, and he was holding Mary’s hand. He’d been crying too, apparently.

\--How did I get here?

\--Dragged you to the truck, mostly. You walked for some of it. And you were talking like you’d lost your mind.

\--I did. I did lose my mind, he said. He sat up very carefully, gritting his teeth. He put his feet on the floor, started to stand up, re-evaluated that idea, and tried again, more slowly this time.

\--Want to tell me what the Hell you were on?

He shook his head, pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. –I wasn’t on anything. Where the Hell was I? When you found me?

Spectre didn’t answer, and he uncovered his eyes and looked at him, waiting. –Well?

\--It’s called the Golgotha, Spectre told him. –It’s where they—where Calvary—

\--Yes, he said quickly. God knew he didn’t need to hear any more of that. –I know all about what they do there.

 

He was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing a long-sleeved tie-dyed shirt of Spectre’s and a black velvet skirt of Zillah’s. Nobody was even close to his height, so borrowing pants had been out. He was holding a handful of ice wrapped in a dish towel against his nose. It didn't seem to be broken. He considered fixing it, though that didn't always work when he tried it on himself. Something stubborn and hateful inside him wouldn't let him. He _wanted_ a bloody nose. Like a human might have.

Mary was making him a drink. She brought it to him, and sat down beside him, without looking him in the eyes. He caught her right hand in his, set down his makeshift ice pack. Her palm was wrapped in gauze. 

\--What happened? he asked her, twining his fingers with hers, so that she couldn’t pull away.

\--I fell when I was running.. Scraped it, she told him, almost whispering. Her eyes were filling with tears again. –I’m sorry I—

He touched her face, brushed her eyelashes, her eyebrows, with his fingertips. --Don’t. It never happened, he whispered, and when she closed her eyes he started to unwrap the gauze from her hand, very gently.

Her palm was scraped raw, like a very bad road burn, weeping fluid. He hissed through his teeth in sympathy. He looked at her, asking without asking. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes. –Mary, you know…if you would let me…he began, awkwardly.

\--I don't want you to waste it, she said.

\--It's more like love than sugar, Mar. Limitless, he said.

\--Will it hurt? she asked, her voice tiny. She was staring at the tablecloth.

\--No. Not this.

It was unnecessary. They both knew that. And they both knew why he was going to do it anyway.

She nodded, once, and squeezed her eyes closed tight, as if she didn’t believe him. He had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at how young that made her look.

He cupped her hand in his, with her palm turned up, and put his fingertips just above the worst place, then touched, as lightly as he could. She flinched, and he moved to holding her wrist, and he began it. 

He did it very slowly. He started by knitting closed the capillaries, then closed the deepest layer of skin from the outside edges to the center. She made a small, faint sound, with her lips pressed hard together, and her fingers curled hard, fell open again. She wound her other hand into a fist. He was pulling closed the top layer of skin, smoothing out the tiny textures, and he sent some of it up her arm, just because, and she gasped and tried to pull her hand away, almost a reflex.

\--Don’t, he told her. She stopped resisting, and when he finally stopped her eyes were unfocused and her breathing was strange.

\--Did it hurt? he asked her, drawing circles on the new skin with his fingernail.

She swallowed, and said, --It felt like…like heaven happening just under my skin.

He laughed at that one. –You should have seen yourself when I did it before, when you had pneumonia. You were orgasmic.

She glared at him, blushing, and squeezed his hand hard in a way that was decidedly unfriendly. –I was not!

\--You’re right. I was orgasmic. It was the first time I ever had my hands up your shirt—

She made an infuriated noise, and did her wineglass trick again, dipping her fingers into his drink and flicking rum and coke at him. He yelled, and pretended to cringe, and then she looked at him, finally.

He leaned close to her, watching her face to see if that was all right. She reached up, and put her hands in his hair, and pulled him close, hugged him tight. He kissed the side of her neck, buried his face in her shoulder. He wanted to tell her all of it, wanted to cry, wanted to scream. He only knelt on the floor and wrapped his arms around her, and they were okay again.

 

Zillah woke him up, coming in the door at about three in the morning, reeking of drugs. He and Mary were curled up on the fold-out bed --Do you like what you've become? Zillah asked him, whispering across the dark space of the living room

\--Go to Hell, he said, and pulled the quilt over his head.

(31)

 

He was sitting at the dining room table pushing eggs and bacon around on his plate. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make it art. He took a bite, feeling like a zombie. The eggs were probably wonderful, judging by the way Jordan was devouring them. It was like eating styrofoam in butter. He had to struggle to swallow it.

Soft hands, smelling of lilies, came around his neck from behind, fingertips trailing down his throat. --Can I talk to you? Mary asked him, close to his ear. 

He turned to look at her. She had apparently spent most of the night crying, and she was pale with dark circles around her eyes, and she looked like Death for an instant, terrifying him. He stood up, the chair clattering, and pulled her close and held her until she stopped shaking.

_Like a deer. That's what she looks like--a deer._

\--I love you. I told them all to go home. I'm not going out there again. That's not the life I want, he said, already knowing it was too damn late. --I want to live with you and have kids and make love like a couple of teenagers until we're eighty. That's the life I want, he told her, his voice hoarse and flat.

He hoped he was convincing her. He wasn't convincing himself at all, and the look Zillah gave him made him bare his teeth and think things that made him _positive_ he was no Messiah.

\--I hate sleeping without you with me. I don't ever want to do that again, she said into his shoulder, very close to tears.

\--You won't. I promise. Not ever, he told her.

 _No salvation,_ Zillah mouthed at him. Mary had her face buried in his chest, and she couldn't see either one of them.

 _Fuck off, whore,_ he mouthed back.

(32)

 

He and Mary went home.

Most of his followers left, and whether they went home or went around as new strange missionaries, he didn't know. He had done all he could. Some of them...maybe twenty....stayed in Calvary, and after a month or so of their polite and pleading letters left on his doorstep, he broke down and spoke with them. Their agreement was simple. He was perfectly willing to be friends, but he would not under any circumstances be god. Period. 

Some of them stayed in the little camp, and repeated the few sermons he had given them to anyone who would listen. He ignored them.

Elijah regaled his flock with tales of the demon-possessed witch and his whore, and they all nodded, hallelujah, and prayed for his soul. Whenever the minister got the idea in his head to get a group together to march out to their house again, there was a sudden lack of volunteers. 

He healed a broken leg, on a horse this time, because a crying boy knocked on his door at six in the morning and begged him to help. He had never tried to use it on anything other than a person before, and he hadn't been certain it would work. Apparently the power didn't care what kind of animal it worked on, human or otherwise.

The boy gave him a rabbit's foot in payment. He accepted it gravely. It was old, and loveworn. It was still on his keychain, balding, precious. He loved it. He needed all the luck he could get.

He would lie in bed at night, beside his beautiful wife, and stare up at the ceiling. Her body was changing, very subtly. Her nipples were darker and more sensitive, and her hipbones didn't poke his quite so badly anymore, and her stomach was rounded, very slightly. She was perfect, and he spent hours kissing her, telling her dreams, telling her jokes, telling her everything.

At night, he would lie there, and think, _was that it? Am I finished? Dear God, is it finished?_

And he knew that it wasn't. Not at all.

_I have everything I have ever wanted. God, let this be my life. Please._

(33)

 

One month later, Mary woke him up in at dawn, shaking him so hard it was rattling his teeth, and screaming something about Spectre.

He grabbed her, said her name, and she couldn't stop screaming. He gritted his teeth-- _god, I really don't want to do this_ \--and slapped her twice, as hard as he could stand to.

She stopped.

\--Mary, I love you, and I'm so sorry I had to hit you. Tell me what's happening.

\--It's Spectre, Jordan said from the kitchen. Zillah was standing beside him like a ghost, looking bored. --He's been arrested.

That just didn't fucking compute. --For _what?_

\--For prostitution. They're saying the safehouse is a whorehouse, and they want to execute him and sign the house over to the church, Jordan said, crying.

\--Who's saying that?

\--Who do you think? Mary said, still almost screaming. --It's Elijah. He's scared of you and he can't get to you any other way, and _I love him and they'll--_

\--They're not going to do anything to him, Mar, he told her, and sat up and started putting on his boots. 

Zillah was standing in front of the doorway, and he waited just a little too long to move out of his way. _Beginning of the end,_ he mouthed.

\--I don't have time for your bullshit, Zillah. Fucking move, he said out loud, surprising the entire room.

 

They wouldn't even let him into City Hall, let alone into the jail. Two black-suited guards with guns bearing a suspicious resemblance to Elijah's enforcers told him that unless he wanted to get in by being arrested, he'd better turn the fuck around and go home.

Mary stood across the street, her hair blowing into her face. He went back to her, his mind twisting like a nest of snakes. There had to be a way out of this. If there was, he sure as Hell didn't see it.

\--They won't let you in?

\--No. No fucking visitors.

She made a breaking-glass noise and covered her mouth with her hand.

\--Mar, they won't...I mean, they don't... He hesitated. --Will they really execute him? For that?

She nodded, her hand pressed against her mouth so hard her knuckles were white. 

He was grasping at straws, now, asking questions he already knew the answers to. --A trial?

Mary shook her head, and managed to say, --Aaron just...decides.

He looked up into the sky. It was late summer, and everything looked bleached and worn. --Oh, my God, he said, very softly.

 

Aaron decided. 

They found out when a knock slammed into the front door hard enough to shake the house. Mary burst into tears, knowing what it meant. He had opened the door, and one of the lieutenants was standing there. --The execution is in the morning. Eight o'clock, out at the Golgotha. Attendance is mandatory, the man said, and turned, presumably moving on to the next house.

\--Wait. My wife. She's pregnant.

The man turned back to him, his eyes empty of anything resembling a soul. --So what?

 _God, I'd like to smash your fucking teeth right in._ \--She can't go to his goddamned execution, she's _pregnant,_ and she _loves_ him--

\--Attendance is mandatory, the man said again, sounding like a robot. And he left.

He closed the door, alone again with his hysterical wife.

 

The next morning he was standing in the bathroom, with Mary crying on the bed. She had been crying all night. He was staring at the him in the mirror, thinking, _Did you enjoy that? Did you enjoy dragging that pompous bastard through town, kicking him in the ass, breaking his fingers? I hope so. Because you just cost Spectre his life. You just cost your wife the only blood family she has, and you just cost yourself a dear friend._

He picked up his razor. It only took a minute. He had read that they did that in Egypt, to mourn the dead. He would do it now.

He shaved off his eyebrows, the first scrapes tentative, then furious. He stared at this mutilation, wet the corner of a towel and smoothed off the stubble. He nodded at himself, and what nodded back was only his reflection. He put on makeup. All black. And he was wearing the same tuxedo jacket he had married her in, fought Elijah in, the same fucking jacket they would probably bury him in.

 

Not only did Mary have to go with him, he discovered that the Golgotha was a hill south of town. About a fucking mile south of town. She walked without complaining, veiled and crying, and he kept his arm around her and tried to help her as much as he could. Pregnant. Watching Spectre murdered, and being forced to walk a fucking mile for the privilege.

Spectre was led along by two of the guards. He was not bound, and he did not resist. Something like peace had settled over his face. --Mary, I love you. I love all of you. Forever, he said, when they arrived. One of the enforcers growled at him to shut up. 

Spectre ignored the man, looking only at him, hard, and then turned away, being led.

And he realized what that meant.

_Oh, god. Oh, god, he can't possibly think that. Oh god I CAN'T POSSIBLY DO THIS..._

At least, he didn't think he could.

 _Do you like this? Do you?_ Zillah said with telepathy, at his right side. Jordan was stumbling along holding Zillah's hand, crying, wearing Spectre's straw hat.

He ignored that. He couldn't afford to do anything else. Mary couldn't take even one more thing, and that was assuming she survived this.

And then he saw the crosses.

\--What the Hell? he said, out loud, without meaning to. Terror. Would he fall into visions again? Here? In front of the entire town?

\--That's the Golgotha, Mary said, tearfully still coherent. 

\--They can't mean to...

\--They bury you wherever you...fall, she said, almost losing it. --The crosses mark the place. They won't bury you in hallowed ground if you...if you're...

She did lose it, then, and when he stopped to try and calm her down one of the enforcers grabbed his arm. --Come on, the man ordered.

He snarled at the bastard, pulled Mary along anyway. He couldn't do anything else. She was barely walking, and he had to put his arm around his waist and more or less drag her forward.

Zillah laughed, very softly.

There was a low cliff, about six feet high, and they began to line up around it in an ugly half-circle. Elijah was there, in a black suit, gold glittering at his neck and his cuffs. He had a thin triumphant smile to offer, seeing Mary crying.

_Son of a bitch. Oh, you wait, this is NOT over now._

They pulled Spectre out in the middle, in front of the wall, and made him kneel. He did so, still without resisting.

_Oh, god, he's still looking at me, straight at me, and I REALLY DON'T KNOW IF I CAN DO THIS, NOT IF HE'S DEAD_

Aaron was there, up front, the good seat, you might say, with Nila behind him, her hands gleaming with rings on the handles of his wheelchair. She was looking out towards the horizon, at nothing in particular, as if this entire thing were an annoyance, a chore.

A man in a black hood was standing behind Spectre.

The bastard who had come to their door said, --Aaron has decided that this man is to be put to death for running a house of prostitution. The sentence is death by decapitation.

The crowd made a sound that was not a sound, all of them exhaling at once.

He almost got his hand over her mouth in time. Mary only made the beginning of a scream, and he covered her mouth through her veil, and turned her around and held her to him, hard, whispering, _don't look, Mar, don't look or you'll see it forever, don't look_

Jordan buried his face in his hands and turned to him--and not Zillah. He was sobbing. He wrapped his arms around them both, like a warding. 

Zillah didn't move. He stood alone, and he kept his eyes on Spectre.

The man in the hood had a machete. A goddamn machete like you would use in your garden in the jungle in the middle of the desert for a murder

and the blade went back

and the blade snapped forward

and Spectre collapsed in two horrible pieces, in a fountain of blood.

 _Why do they always make blood so orange in movies?_ he thought, his mind swinging on a single corroded hinge. _Why? It's really almost purple. Almost purple._

And the sand soaked it up, greedy, mindless.

_Oh god, I don't know if I can fix that, not that, I wouldn't know where to begin, and he DIED EXPECTING TO OPEN HIS EYES AND LOOK UP AT ME_

He made a small, anguished sound that only he and Zillah heard, his eyes stinging, and he put his mouth on the top of Mary's head, holding her too hard, shaking.

And they poured gasoline over the corpse. He could smell it, sharp, like doom. And there was no way, no way he could, fix, _that_

and they set fire to him, and Elijah was watching him, smiling that smug fucking smile. He could almost hear the bastard thinking, _let's see you heal him now._

The crowd was already beginning to scatter, mothers picking up children, men talking in low voices. The fun was over.

\--Watch her, he told Jordan, handing Mary over to him, and he pushed and ducked his way to the crowd and stood blocking Aaron's wheelchair.

Nila looked at him, amazed. --Excuse me--she began.

\--Fuck off, bitch, he said, without sparing her a glance. He was saving all his looking for Aaron. --You're Aaron?

The man was looking up at him in shock and disgust. --How dare--

_\--I SAID... ARE YOU AARON?_

The voice. Aaron nodded, speechless.

He worked up an incredible amount of saliva and spit directly into Aaron's face. 

Everything froze.

He stared at him until he had made his point, and said, --Whatever happened to _thou shalt not kill?_ Remember that one, you murdering son of a bitch?

He turned, and took Mary back from Jordan, and they went home.


	3. MOON

\--You can't, can you? Not now.

\--No, he told her quietly. --I'm sorry, Mar. I would do anything to be able to...to fix that. I can't. There's just not...

_(enough left of him to bring back)_

\--any way I can do anything.

\--Oh, she said, and that was all. He had given her a Valium, scared to death that it might hurt the baby, knowing that letting her cry like that would definitely hurt the baby more than a little Valium would.

\--He didn't get to see the baby, she said, reading his mind, and started crying again, very softly. --Oh, God, did I just see that? They just killed him? _I don't understand, I loved him--_

\--Stop, Mar. Stop, dearest. I know. And he knows you loved him. Just sleep. Come on.

He had already peeled her out of her shoes, stockings and veil--he was the one who had put them on her to begin with--and now he pushed at her until she lay on her side with her head in his lap, and he stroked her hair until the drug finally caught her, and she fell asleep.

 

Jordan tapped at the front door, stuck his head in. --Is she okay?

\--Yes. Where's Zillah?

\--At Spe...at the house, Jordan said. --The church didn't get that, at least. They gave it to Mary. I don't think she heard that part. Actually they technically gave it to you since they think the husband is the boss and everything. 

\--Fine. The two of you can have it. Stay here with her, will you?

\--Oh, man, if she wakes up and you're not here--

\--She won't, he told Jordan, easing himself out from under her. --I gave her a Valium. 

Jordan was pleading with his eyes. He gave up and hugged him. They cried for a while.

Jordan was still for a long time. Then, he said, --Um, you can't do it, though, can you?

\--I don't know, he said. --I don't think so. But I have to try.

(35)

 

The sky was spread thick and bright with stars, so many it looked like an illusion. He looked up at them, and wondered if there was a planet circling one of them where the people had never heard of murder, or pain, or tears. He hoped there was. The universe needed at least one place like that, even one. Just one. One sanctuary.

The stars blurred, and he realized he was crying again. 

Spectre. _We're going to name the kid Queer Circus Freak. After you._

\--Hallelujah, he whispered, hurting bad and deep and ugly. He wiped his face with his hand and started to walk out to the Golgotha.

 

Spectre's body was lying where it had fallen, blackened and twisted and still in two pieces. The smell. Jesus, the smell was awful, sickly sweet, the smell of the body of a man he had loved that some bastard had fucking set on fire.

He knelt beside it for a long time, doing what some might have called praying. He was having a conversation with the mirror man, and it was pretty one-sided tonight.

When he was as ready as he would ever be, he reached out, and very gently turned the body over, and put the head back where it belonged. The ash that had once been ghostwhite hair dusted his hand like bad cocaine.

He put his hands on the corpse, and closed his eyes. One phrase. _come back come back comeback comeback comebackcomebackCOMEBACK_

He poured everything he had into it, hurting himself, burning his hands, scorching his lymph nodes, his eyes pouring tears, every muscle locked in furious effort. 

_(SPECTRE COME BACK)_

and he tried for as long as he could and then tried even longer until he was

empty

and when he opened his eyes he saw a terrible, brutalized thing, a skinned shuddering disaster weeping fluid, raising spastic hands that were still jutting burned stumps of bone, and the thing looked at him with Spectre's eyes and tried to smile.

_o god what have i done_

\--Spectre? he whispered. He could feel the one hinge in his mind beginning to give.

\--'S okay. I know you tried. Maybe...shouldn't have. Glad you did...tell you-- This voice was scraped thin and made rough with ash, but it was Spectre's weird kind Mississippi voice, brutally familiar, with almost-swallowed _n_ 's and drawn easy vowels.

\--Tell me, he said, and he pulled Spectre close, trying to cradle that raw flesh up away from the sand.

\--Mary. Tell her...love her. Tell her...tell the baby, about me

\--I will, he said. Was it possible to hurt like this and go on living? What kind of god let that be a rule? What kind of god made a mind that could suffer this way without shutting down?

\--I see...a war. I see. I see everything. You.

\--Spectre, oh, god, I'm so sorry, what have I done...

\--Tell, Spectre insisted. --Tell her the faces don't matter. Tell her about...cocoon....tell her what you are

\--I can't! he cried, pleading. --How can I when I don't even know myself?

\--You will know. You'll...know. I saw...the sky open up...sun gone out...you, your hands up....I saw. I see.

Spectre raised one mangled hand, poked at him. --Send me back. I love you. Freak.

He burst into tears, like he had never cried before, vast angry aching sobs, and he waved goodbye like an idiot and let go of the part of himself that was holding Spectre together.

After a long time he took off his shirt, and folded together what was left of Spectre in it, and picked it up and started walking.

 

Zillah was sitting on the front steps of Spectre's house when he got there. He was smoking his eternal cigarette.

He went into the back yard, into Spectre's weird crooked tool shed. He shoved gasoline cans out of the way with his foot, cupping Spectre's head against his chest as though to keep him from seeing them. One of them spilled a little, and the smell made him cry again. He laid Spectre down, and got the shovel, and came back out and started digging a grave under the lone oak tree, right where he had gotten married. The ground was mean and mocking, with sand filling in the hole almost as fast as he could dig. He smeared sweat out of his eyes, and dug faster.

Zillah wandered over, stood there smoking languidly. --Did it work?

\--Fuck off. 

\--Was he bloody? Squishy? Like something aborted, like he had been in an industrial acc--

He spun so quick Zillah never even saw it coming, and struck him in the face with the flat of the shovel. Zillah dropped like he had been shot, and he lay there crumpled and did not move.

\--Next time you say a goddamned thing to me it won't be the flat side, he told Zillah, and went back to digging his grave. 

\--You broke one of my teeth, Zillah said, petulant, still lying there, his voice mangled. 

\--Heal it your fucking self. We both know you can.

Zillah sat up, pressing his hand to his bloody nose. --If you hate me so much, why don't you just kill me?

He stopped digging, looked at him. --Because I know that you really do love Jordan. And you didn't plan on that. And I want to see you experience humanity for once in your miserable, sadistic existence. Just once.

Zillah snarled at him, furious. He didn't deny it.

He turned away again, and kept digging. When it was deep enough he put Spectre inside, very gently, arranging his shirt very carefully around the body. --Sweet dreams, he whispered, and he dropped a handful of sand over the corpse before he picked up the shovel, and filled in Spectre's grave. 

There was never enough dirt. Never.

When he was done, he couldn't think of anything to use for a tombstone, so he uprooted one of Spectre's marijuana plants in the little greenhouse and planted it on the grave. And that was all.

(36)

 

He began it the next day.

He went into the hardware store, the one where he had healed the little girl's harelip, and bought a can of red spraypaint. From there, in broad daylight, he walked across the street, four blocks or so down to City Hall, and spraypainted MURDERERS across the double doors. He attracted a silent amazed crowd of witnesses. From there he went to the narrow church Elijah used for everyday services--three on Sundays--and left a different message. He spraypainted two messy but recognizable eyes, one iris colored in, one not. He dropped the can, turned, daring them with his eyes. The clot of people moved aside, and let him pass. One kid, a boy with ragged black hair and a silver ring through his eyebrow, gestured a quick surreptitious Hell yeah at him. He gave the eye contact for a second, as a gift, and memorized his face.

He went home to Mary, washed the paint off his hands in the kitchen sink. She was looking through photographs. He watched her for a moment, then went over to her and took the album out of her hands and closed it. --No more, Mar. You'll make yourself sick.

She was getting ready to cry again. --He's _gone--_

He picked her up and slammed her against the wall by the bed, shaking the whole damn house. He kissed her hard enough to draw blood, kneed her legs apart and ground against her. He had his hand up her shirt, and he sucked hard on her tongue, and bit at her throat and said, --And _we're_ not. How many people have to die at one execution, Mar? I want to live. I want you to live. And if you don't want to, that's too fucking bad, because you promised you'd do what I say. You promised.

She was trying to twist away from him, and he kissed her again, slow and deep, until she was gasping in spite of herself. --Live. Live, Mar. Please, he said against her mouth.

\--You win, she said, and put her arms around him.

 

They retaliated the next day. But not against him. They still didn't have the balls to do that.

This time, they went after Jordan.

A hard mean pull in the top of his skull caught him in the middle of breakfast. He dropped his fork halfway to his mouth, splattering scrambled eggs and making Mary cry out in shock. He didn't stop to explain. There was no time to waste. He ran, as fast as he could, to the tiny part of Calvary about a half-mile away that passed as downtown. Four of Elijah's cronies had Jordan down on his knees, and one of them had a whip. They had already hit him twice. Zillah was facedown in the sand, with one of them kneeling on his back, holding his hands. It would be his turn soon enough.

 _You could stop this yourself, you conniving fuck,_ he thought of Zillah. Maybe that wasn't true, though--from Zillah he got only a terrified blur of shock and horror at this new sensation, pain. 

He hit the bastard on top of Jordan in a full tackle, There was a brief clumsy struggle, and he took the man's whip and smacked him hard with the handle of it, across his face. The man whimpered, startled and hurt, an angry red welt bisecting his face.

\--What the fuck do you think you're doing? he demanded. The man struggled once, and only stared at him, sullen.

Elijah's smooth evil voice came from behind him. --These men are homosexuals. Read Leviticus. If you interfere with me again, you'll be next.

He turned to look at Elijah, and he held up the whip and did something he would probably regret for the rest of his life. He ignited it. The leather burst into flames, burning white in his hand without burning at all. --What's the matter, you leech? I thought you got off on fire, he said, grinding the words through his teeth in jagged little bursts. He stood up, slow and angry, with the glowing whip in his hand. --Now let them go. Right now. Or I will level this hellhole.

Elijah was shaken. --Let them go.

The guards obeyed. 

He extinguished the whip. 

Jordan stood up, too afraid to cry. 

\--Jordan. Come here, he ordered.

Jordan did.

He grabbed him and kissed him full on the mouth, deeply, with complete and sincere passion. Jordan squeaked, went rigid, hands flailing at air. Then, he closed his eyes, and tried to kiss back, innocent and confused. 

When he stopped, Jordan stared at him and blushed, stunned, his eyes shocked blank and scared.

He stepped back, and said, --You and Zillah go home. Don't come here again. If any of these fuckers come near the house, shoot them.

He turned back to Elijah, and said, --Was that gay enough for you?

\--You're sick, Elijah said, revolted.

He tossed Elijah the whip, no longer in flames, still perfectly whole, and took off his shirt. He spread out his arms, stood posed like Jesus. --You get off on using that thing on queers? Have a ball. I dare you.

\--You'll just heal yourself.

\--I will not. I give you my word, he said.

Jordan did cry, then. He tried to run back, and Zillah grabbed him. Jordan was struggling to be let go. --Don't, don't hit him. Don't. What is _wrong_ with you? Why are you so fucking mean? he was yelling at Elijah.

\--Jordan, go. I told you to go, he said, pretending to still be calm.

Zillah was pulling Jordan down the street, telling him something that made him stop resisting.

Elijah handed the whip to one of his enforcers, and said, --You heard him. Go ahead.

His enforcer looked ill. --He's just _standing_ there--

\--Didn't you just hear me? Elijah shouted.

He saw the man give him a strange look, a frown and a sadness in his eyes. He wanted to shake the poor bastard, to yell three words: _think for yourself!_

Instead, he said, --I forgive you.

He saw the whip come up. He closed his eyes, opened them again. He knew better than to try to brace himself. The key was in not resisting.  
The sound of it was the most terrible part. It sounded fake, synthetic, like something devised on a soundstage for a bad western.

He was vaguely aware that a crowd was forming, and that strangely enough, most of what he heard them saying seemed to be in his support. 

_What are you doing?_

_What did he do?_

_Don't you think that's enough?_

_Come on, Elijah, he gets it. You'll kill him._

The only really bad slash was when the tip swung around and split open his lower lip, tearing through to his gums. That was a white-hot slamming pain that wrung a low sound out of him, and he spit out a mouthful of blood.

The rest of it was far worse than he had expected, easier to bear than he had dared to hope. It blurred together quickly, into a single agony that would have almost become pleasure if it had gone on...except that he couldn't

...quite

_...breathe_

(36)

 

When he came back he was lying in the street, with Jordan standing over him crying and Zillah helping him sit up, being surprisingly gentle. 

\--Are you crazy? Why did you do that? Why? Jordan was yelling at him. 

Once, when he was sixteen or so, a scorpion had stung him on the tip of his finger, almost underneath the tip of his nail. The pain had been so bad he had screamed, and kept on screaming, and he had banged his hand into the ground in senseless agony until he'd broken a bone in his wrist. He felt like that now, only all over his back, his chest. --I told you to go. Don't you ever listen to me anymore?

And then Jordan hugged him, and that hurt like absolute sheer Hell. --Why did you have to do that?

\--I proved my point, didn't I? he croaked. --What are we going to tell Mar?

\--About the only things she'll believe are either the truth, or that you fell in a meat grinder, Zillah said.

\--Fuck. Help me up.

They did, and with one of them on either side, he made it back to the trailer.

 

The worst of them were on his chest, and he was burning with fever by the next morning. The whip had been trailed through the dust repeatedly, and God only knew what kind of germs were in the open wounds. He felt like he was dying. Mary was frantic.

\--Just do it. I know you can, she kept saying, her voice moving in and out of focus, sounding like a warped record. Her face was so bright. He wanted her, God, she was lying beside him and her skin was so cool, and if he was inside her he would be okay, yes, only his hands kept missing her, and she seemed to be upset about something. Spectre, probably. Or anything. It was hormones, driving her crazy. Was she mad at him? He tried to ask her, and someone was putting something cold and wet on his chest, over his face, and that was _heaven_

 

and he woke up aching and tired with a terrible taste in his mouth, but he was okay.

\--Mar?

She was coming out of the bathroom, her hand over her mouth. --I can't believe you did that. Jordan told me.

\--Are you mad at me?

\--I just can't... She was beyond crying, all out of tears, and she rubbed hard at her face, leaving red traces of her fingers. --I know, now, I think, that you have to do...the things you do. I just can't lose you. You're all I have left.

\--You won't lose me. Mar, if I didn't...do what I am doing now...you would have lost me already. I wouldn't be the person you love anymore.

\--I know. Oh, God, I know, but it's so hard.

\--It's not all that easy for me, either, he said, and reached up to his chest, exploring the damage. It was bad. It was worse, in the places where it had cut into old scars. The pain there was frightening, where the skin had already been too thin, too twisted.

\--It...hurts. It didn't hurt when it was happening. It hurts now, he whispered, and he wasn't talking about the cuts, not really.

She climbed into bed beside him, and pulled him close, carefully, and no, she wasn't mad at him. Not at all. He could read that in the texture of her skin.

She kissed the back of his neck, and whispered, --You never let _me_ hit you.

He had to laugh, even though that hurt like Hell. --Give me a week or so before we do any pain experiments, okay?

\--Then you've got one fucking week, and I'm going to beat you senseless. You scared me to death. I love you, she told him again. 

\--You know, you could say that, and only that, all day every day for the rest of our lives, and I would never get tired of it.

\--Are you okay? Seriously? she asked him.

\--I'm just trying to.... He stopped, searching for words. --I guess I'm just trying to hold it all together. For as long as I can.

\--Where were you born?

That was out of the blue. He tried to remember. --In the stockroom of a truck stop. I think. I don't know what city. That's where they found me. My mother almost died. She was young. She hated me. Finally I left. Then I came here.

\--Was her name Mary?

He looked at her, sad and adoring. --Mar, you already know I don't have that kind of answer. I left her. I met Jordan in school, and he's...you know how he is. He's kind of damaged, or something. He's like a little kid. And he never questioned me. I took him away from abuse. And we were each other's family, and then we ended up here.

She pushed herself up on one elbow, looking down at him. Her hair was a sleek curtain, irresistible, and he reached up and tucked it behind her ear. --That's it? That's your life?

\--No. That's my history. You're my life.

\--Zillah looks at you funny when he doesn't know anyone is looking. Like in that Shakespeare play: a lean and hungry look.

\--Zillah can take a flying leap. I'm taken, he told her.

\--I don't think it's that kind of look. Not exactly, she said.

 _I don't either,_ he thought.

\--Oh, come on, Mar, he said, joking. --What's the matter? You think he's out of my league?

\--I don't think he could handle you, she said, with that possessive look he liked. It was nice to be owned, in that way.

They lay there, silent for a long time.

\--What will they do next? she whispered, hardly daring to ask.

He thought about it for a long time. --I don't know, Mar. I don't know.

 

He got better, more slowly than he would have liked. The cuts closed. A week after he was horsewhipped he was sitting outside, scratching in the dust with a broken pool cue, and a little girl wandered up and stood, chewing her finger and staring at him. He tried ignoring her, and when she showed no signs of going away, he looked at her and asked, --What's your name?

\--Rachel, she whispered, and glanced at her feet, blushing.

\--I remember you, he said. --I helped your face get better.

She nodded. --Why dontcha make your tummy better? she asked him. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and he had taken the bandages off.

\--Sometimes, you don't need to. I keep these cuts so that the man who did them will remember he didn't kill me.

He wrote RACHEL in the sand.

She crept nearer, finally sat beside him, fascinated. --What's that?

\--That's your name, he told her, --It says Rachel. 

Her eyes got wider. --Like in a book?

He nodded, trying not to smile and failing. --Just like in a book.

She took the stick from him when he offered it, slowly, as though he might have some trick in mind, and after several tries she copied her name. 

\--Like in a book! she said, delighted.

He taught her _star, moon, sun, sky,_ and _candy_ before she wandered away in a sudden fit of shyness or boredom. He wasn't sure which.

He'd watched her go, amused. She'd taken his pool cue.

Mary opened the door behind him. --You know you're eating today, if I have to sit on you to make you.

He rubbed RACHEL out of the sand with his foot. --I was just coming in, he told her.

 

(37)

 

They had two good months after that. Elijah did some whining from his pulpit about sodomy and demonic possession, and then apparently gave up. 

Mary's stomach got rounder and tighter. She didn't look completely pregnant yet, but you could tell where the baby was. One night she woke him out of a dead sleep, and whispered, --Give me your hand.

She put his hand over her stomach, pressing his fingers in hard, and he said, --What is it? Are you okay? Did--

And it happened, like a butterfly inside her skin, trying to escape.

Christmas went off inside his chest, so bright and beautiful and pure that tears blurred his vision. --It kicked! he said, nearly yelling, delighted. --Can you hear me in there? he asked her stomach. --I'm your dad!

She was laughing at him, and he cradled her close, kissing her, and leaned over and covered her stomach with kisses too, feeling that tiny impact against his lips, twice.

\--Won't it be weird to have sex now? she asked, giggling. --What if it annoys him? 

She had started calling the baby a he, and not an it. He was beginning to imitate the habit.

\--So he'll grow up to be a sex prodigy, he told her, kissing lower than her stomach.

She wound her hands in his hair, pulling, and said, --Will you stay with me? When he's born?

\--Of course I will. It's half my fault, he said.

\--I think it's _all_ your fault, she said, pretending to be angry, and pulling his hair harder until he did what she wanted.

 

(38)

 

It was Halloween, a month later. Jordan and Zillah threw a party at Spectre's--they still called it that, even now.

They were dressed as what Mary called the Odd Couple. He was wearing red and black, with a black feathered mask glittering with red stones circling the eyes. She wore solid white, with a tinsel halo over her head. The dress almost hid her tummy, and he joked with her about a shotgun wedding, and did angels get sent to Hell for getting knocked up by demons?

\--Fag, she told him, still getting dressed, and threw her brush at him.

\--Oh? And how did this happen? Was it immaculate, Mary? he asked her, putting his arms around her and patting her stomach with both hands like a drum until she relented and giggled.

He fishtailed on the way to Spectre's, carefully, to make her laugh, and her hair snapped around her face, and she held her hand out the window to catch the air. His mask was sitting on the seat between them, a spooky half-face with empty bird eyes. He didn't like it, staring up at him, and he managed to push it under the edge of her skirt. 

The moon was full, a perfect yellow Halloween moon.

 

(39)

 

Loud, harsh music was blasting out of the house. Paper lanterns had been set up along the path, and there was a weird sculpture that looked like half-voodoo doll and half mummified gorilla set up beside the front door. 

\--That has to be Jordan's work, he told her.

\--The music, or that monkey-thing?

\--Yes, he said.

She helped him get his mask on straight. Angels didn't really have masks, he supposed, but that would have ruined the fun of the party, so she had a dainty white half-mask studded with clear and pink and purple rhinestones. He had mounted it on a dowel rod for her, wrapping the bare wood in white ribbon, and drenching it in glitter.

He climbed out of the truck, went around and opened her door, and offered her his arm. She took it, gracefully, and stepped out like a princess. 

\--You're breaking my heart. Let's go home, he whispered, near her ear, running his finger along the neckline of her dress. 

She laughed and pushed at him. --Behave! It took me an hour and a half to get dressed for this party. We're at least going to go inside.

\--Greetings, Jordan told them, meeting them at the door. He was dressed as a priest, in full makeup, with the front half of his dreadlocks either dyed or sprayed red.

He almost dragged Mary back down the stairs because he was laughing so hard at the costume.

\--What? she and Jordan were both asking him.

\--It's just that I bet Zillah is--

He was right.

Zillah walked up behind Jordan and did a slow turn for them, his arms outstretched. He was wearing a butchered nun's habit with a corset and bondage gear underneath. The headdress, or whatever you called it, was the only thing intact.

\--I like that, Zil, he said. He meant that he liked it in an artistic way, and he was also trying to make some kind of overture of friendliness. He wanted nothing more to do with hate and death. His hands still remembered that butterfly convulsion in Mary's stomach, and he wanted the world to be like that, filled with things that were beautiful and new.

Zillah smiled at him, his mouth carefully painted fuck-me red. --Do you really? he said, his voice seductive, slippery and dark.

 

There were about thirty people there, all together, some of the more-friendly people from town, and a few of his more dedicated disciples, Peter included. 

There was the usual round of hugging and small talk that always happened at this kind of a freak convention. There were three women dressed as the vampiress trio from Dracula, and there was another couple, both male, one wearing blue cadaver makeup, the other painted with eye makeup like Alice Cooper, but with the mouth different, painted in an elegant exaggerated black smile, with electrical tape adorning his hands. They weren't familiar to him. 

_(liar you know them both yes and you know)_

The one in the black paint hugged him anyway, and he surprised himself by hugging back. --Do I know you? he asked, over the shoulder of the blue zombie, who was hugging him too.

\--No. But we know you, one of them said. He wasn't sure which one. They were a strange binary entity, and he had a feeling that neither of them spoke only for himself anymore. He liked them. They vanished out onto the porch, wound together, whispering. He looked after them, feeling a vague deep loss. He would have liked to know them.

\--They know who you are, Spectre said near his ear.

He turned, expecting to see nothing at all. Someone was standing there, dressed in a sheet with holes cut for eyes, like a child's first ghost costume, wearing a straw hat over the sheet with a rainbow scarf tied around the brim. 

He reached out, frozen and trembling, thinking _please, please._

\--Don't, Spectre said gently. --None of them can see me, and you look like an idiot poking around in the air.

\--How...

\--It's Halloween, he said. --Tonight the world of the dead is very, very near. His voice was strange, he could hear it now, coming from a great distance away.

\--Not that near, or they all could see you, he said, terrified, and where was Mary? Where was Mary? He wanted her beside him again, he wanted her to hug him close, hold him hard. She was captive by embraces and people patting her stomach across the room, and she didn't see his frantic pleading look.

\--No, Spectre agreed, the sheet damp over where his eyes would have been. --Not all of them are this near. To where I am.

\--I don't want to hear this. I don't want to play this fucking Shakespeare game, he said, and turned away from the ghost. 

\--It's not a game, (.......), Spectre said.

The sound of his name hit him like a heart attack. He turned, not giving a damn if all they saw him talking to was air, and hissed, --Don't.

\--Remember that I'm never far away, Spectre said, and stepped back, and vanished into the crowd, or maybe someone stepped in front of him, and maybe it was a cruel joke 

except that he knew damn well that Jordan had Spectre's hat, and that he kept it in a hatbox in a closet with a shrunken head and a bong that supposedly had once belonged to Jimi Hendrix, his treasures, and he would never have given it out or lent it to anyone but its owner.

(40)

 

He was sitting on the porch, with a drink in his hand, and a bowl of something heavily laced with opium that the blacksmile angel had given him. 

\--You can smoke it all. I have a shitload of it, and you look like you need it, the angel said.

\--What's your name?

The man shook his head, smiling. --I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.

His eyes widened. He was stunned. This being, whatever it was, could see through his glamour.

\--Don't worry about it. Just kidding, he said. It's Luke.

\--No, it isn't, he whispered, horrified, touched, knowing that this being had only one reason to be here.

\--Sure it is. It could be. That gorgeous thing in the blue is Erik.

\--Why are you here? No, don't tell me, he said, interrupting himself.

Luke smiled, very sadly. --Would you want to do this without angels?

\--How long? he whispered, beyond tears, and drew in Asian violet smoke and held it as long as he could, in desperation.

\--Not long, Luke told him.

\--Oh...God. _Mary._

\--Go to her, Luke told him.

He did, so quickly and so clumsily that he tripped over a Bela Lugosi and a Tinkerbell and he found her in the kitchen, and he picked her up, physically picked her up and ignored her squealing and took her into Spectre's bedroom, and laid her on the dusty bed and made desperate love to her, trying to show her, trying to tell her, trying so hard, and it was over, over too fast. It was over too fast.

\--I love you, Mary, he said, and then, an awful joke he had to say anyway, --Happy Halloween.

 

They came out, amidst catcalls and applause, and his heart was cold and heavy inside him. He was holding her hand, and he let go, deliberately, and she gave him a hurt confused look he didn't have time to see.

Zillah was walking towards him, in his nun-from-Hell regalia, with two of Elijah's enforcers flanking him. --Happy Halloween, he said, mocking, and he drew him close and kissed him, and in one spiteful moment he bent Zillah backwards and returned the kiss, hard, forcing him to feel things he pretended he could not, and he let him go off balance, so that Zillah sprawled on the kitchen floor in his leather and paint. 

He looked up at the enforcers and held out his hands to be handcuffed.

Jordan was standing there with a potato chip in his hand. --NO, he shouted, and he swung with one huge heavy hand, and one of the enforcers fell with a bleeding ear and a crooked jaw and potato chip crumbs on his lapel.

\--Jordan, don't. It's all right. I'm all right, he said, groping comfort at Jordan, ducking under the hands of the other policeman, snatching just enough time to lean over and touch the wounded man and repair that damage, before something heavy hit him with incredible force in the back of his neck, and the world went red, with Mary screaming, and then to merciful black.

(41)

 

\--Where is it?

He was tied to a chair in a white room with six men and Elijah. They had stripped him naked. He was terrified, and trembling, and something dangerously like contempt and rage was at a slow boil in the back of his mind. --Where is what?

\--All of it. The book. Sexual...devices. The candles. All the instruments of your witchery.

He could only stare at Elijah, with no idea what the man was raving about. --What do you need sexual devices for?

Elijah gestured, and one of the men struck him twice, hard, across his face, with a hand heavily studded with expensive rings. His nose started bleeding immediately, and his neck started aching again, already bruised, from his head being swung back so hard. He hung his head forward, spitting blood, and the man who had struck him grabbed his hair and pulled him up to look at Elijah again.

\--We know everything now. Now we know how you have done these things, these false miracles, Elijah hissed at him. --You have entered into a covenant with Satan.

\--I don't even know the guy. Not in my clique, he gasped out. --You probably have a better chance of getting into his parties than I do--

He was hit again, with fists this time, and he felt the left side of his collarbone snap. He made a sound that started as a scream and ended as a laugh. --Where's Aaron? Doesn't he want to watch the fun? he choked out.

Elijah ground out a low ugly sound of rage and hatred. --This mockery will not save you. You started a coven. We know all about Haven. You have been going from city to city with this dark ministry of yours, corrupting people's minds, turning their hearts from Jesus. We know about this, he said, waving his battered notebook at him.

His notebook. Poetry and random phrases and sketches and thoughts and as much as he knew of his own mind put on paper, oh God, oh _God._

He had begun it in an attempt to piece together his own life, to figure out why he didn't have the things others did, memories, a name. And now that attempt at self-repair would be his death sentence. It wasn't a grimoire, but he could imagine what they would make of it. 

_I could ignite it. I think I have the energy to do that,_ he thought.

No. That would prove his "guilt" beyond any hope, and it would prove their crooked self-serving point, and it would brand him a witch as certainly as three sixes on his right hand would have done.

\--I'm no Shakespeare, but I do what I can, he said. _Jesus, why are you doing this? Do you want them to beat you to death?_

He didn't, really. He knew they would do whatever they had already decided to do anyway, and he would be damned if he'd make it easy and pretty for them. 

Elijah leaned very close to his face, so close he could smell the man's breath and his cologne and the dirt and sweat underneath all of that. --Listen. It is no longer a question of your guilt--

\--Was it ever? he said, still amused, but so tired.

\--At this point, this can be easy for you, or hard for you. The penalty for witchcraft is death. What you say to me now will determine how quick that death is.

\--Have you ever read a book called _The Lord of the Flies?_ And has it ever occurred to you that you and Aaron bear a suspicious resemblance to Hitler and Himmler?

Elijah stepped back, enraged, and gestured to the torturers again. 

They untied him, this time, for better access. 

He remembered being thrown against one of the tile walls, and how cold and hard and strange that was against his naked skin, and that he was pretty sure something had broken in his elbow. That made him think of Winston and the first eyeaching sleepless night he'd spent reading 1984. 

He kept himself limp and unresisting, and the only time any sound was driven out of him was when one of them kicked him in the small of his back, repeatedly, from his waist up to his left kidney, up and down in random explosions of unbelievable hurt. The pain was unimaginable. He was certain he was going to piss himself. He vomited instead, even managed to splatter one of the bastards.

They put him back in the chair again, re-tied him. As if he still had any kind of ability to fight back. Something in his elbow was definitely broken. His arm wouldn't bend right, and the contact of the chair was agony. And now the room reeked of bile and regurgitated Halloween-party beer.

\--Do you understand this yet? Elijah asked him.

\--Better than you do, I think, he whispered.

Elijah sighed. --Let's start over. What is your full name?

Damn. The glamour. He must have lost it while they were beating the Hell out of him. 

\--Ziggy Stardust.

Two blows, to the back of his head. --Oh, sorry, what I meant to say was Oz the Great and Terrible. Willy Wonka. George Washington Timothy Leary Anton LaVey Aleister Crowley fucking Charles Manson--

They hit him so hard that time that his teeth slammed together on his tongue, and now he was about to choke on blood, between his bitten tongue and his still-bleeding nose. --All right. Stop. It's Yeshua, he said, pretending to cringe, overdramatizing it a bit.

There was a little man in the corner on a folding chair that he hadn't noticed before, writing on a yellow legal pad, and he scribbled that down furiously, apparently overjoyed at having something significant to write.

He laughed, even though it was excruciating. --That's _not_ really my name. I think I got that from Norman Mailer. Jesus, don't you people ever read books?

\--There is only _one_ book, Elijah said, in that fake reverent tone that only preachers could manage, that was probably the most annoying thing on earth except for mosquito bites.

\--Really? Only one book? I guess I know which book you mean, he said. He started to reach behind him with what little slack his tied hands offered, thinking that maybe rubbing or pressing on his back would help, and one of the men grabbed his hand hard and pulled it away from his bruises.

\--Perhaps you have read it, Elijah said, his voice sticky with sarcasm.

\--It just so happens that book is the one book on Earth I can think of with my name in it, he said, tired of this game, tired of thinking of hysterically funny answers to these dumb questions so that they could hit him again. --My real name. No jokes. It's in Revelation. Chapter One, Verse Eight. Want me to quote it, or do you know that one already?

Elijah did know it already. He could tell that by the way the man's face went white with either rage or fear, with livid red marks across his forehead, down the bridge of his nose. --Get this _thing_ out of here, he whispered to his guards.

(42)

 

They threw him into Calvary's one and only holding cell. He lay on the floor, too hurt and too apathetic to try and climb up on the splintered wooden bench. He healed what little he had the energy to, and slept fitfully, or passed out, fainted. He wasn't sure which. When he woke up, drifted back, he had the energy to stand. 

He was still bleeding from his nose, so he hadn't been out for more than a few minutes. He dipped his fingers in it and painted a messy version of the sigil for release from prison, from _The Key of Solomon,_ on the wall of the cell, just to give them something to think about. When he was finished with that he made as many Satanic symbols as he could think of, out of spite, and then pissed in the corner, agony, more blood than urine. 

He was sitting with his back against the wall, facing the bars, when one of the bastard enforcers walked by, stared at him, and threw a bucketful of something on him. Vinegar. --Ha ha, you funny bastard, he called after the man, the shit stinging in his eyes like acid, burning in his abraded skin. The guy didn't even turn around.

He was dozing again when he heard the door rattle open, _Wow, the sigil fucking worked,_ he thought, drowsy and dazed. It was one of the guards. More pain, more questions. He stood up himself, and let the man drag him back to the white room.

That night, when they brought him back, he couldn't walk at all. They had smashed two of his fingers, sprayed him with a fire hose until his skin was raw, other things that he couldn't remember except as a dark color that was humiliation and pain.

They had given up any pretense at asking intelligent questions. Now it was a endless litany, _confess, repent, confess, repent._ He only remembered one actual question. Elijah leaning over him while two of them knelt on his hands, saying, --Did you tell your coven that they were to be their own gods? Did you tell them that they were gods? _Did you?_

\--Yes, he ground out, and god, _why was he still laughing?_ \--I told them that we are our own gods. And some of us are our own devils. Like you. Like Aaron.

After an hour or so he didn't even hear them anymore. He just let them do whatever they wanted.

The temptation was terrible. _Just agree with them. Agree with whatever they say. Accept Jesus, beg for forgiveness, whatever, you don't have to mean it, just SAY it, SAY ANYTHING THAT WILL MAKE THEM STOP._

Oh, the lure of that voice. It sounded like Zillah in his head.

_And if I do that, they have won already. It won't matter if I mean it or not. It will matter that I said it, and that I let them make me say something that isn't true. I won't be something I'm not. Not even to stop them. Not ever. Not for anything._

 

He lay where they dropped him and stared up at the concrete ceiling. He waited. 

_You're almost me, now. You have to be destroyed to become me. It has to be torture, but it is almost over,_ said the mirror man, beside him.

He turned over, weak, pushing himself around with his feet. He couldn't move his arms. He looked up into his own eyes, and said, --No. The worst part hasn't happened yet.

_The best part hasn't happened yet, either._

\--Why should I believe you?

_You tell everyone to believe in themselves. Can't you take your own advice? I am you. I am what you will become. I am your core, the you that is underneath all of this._

\--This is Gethsemane. I don't want this. I hate it. Take it away. You want to be me, then do it. You let them beat the Hell out of you, if you want. I'm through with this, he said, bitter and tired, so fucking tired.

_You have it backwards. I can't become you. I already was you._

\--So you're me, only from the future? he said, trying to sound scathing, and only succeeding in sounding defeated and flat.

_Something like that. I am the possible you. I am the end, and you are the beginning._

\--And this is the middle.

_Yes._

\--Well, this middle part really blows. Really. I want to go home, he said, and he was crying in spite of himself, crying like a little kid, thinking of Mary, thinking of their bed, a shower, a joint, kisses, no more torture. No more. Just no _more._

 _I know,_ the reflection said, and kissed him with glass lips that were as cold as ice, as white as snow. _To be god is a terrible thing._

\--But somebody's got to do it, right? he whispered.

_No. Everybody's got to do it. But you...you will be the first. And the last._

And the mirror man left him alone, to lie there, to wait.

 

Four days later, they came to his cell again. The sound of the footsteps coming closer made him rock back and forth, not even crying anymore, too scoured out by pain to do anything but rock and experience dread.

The guard opened the door to his cell, and said, --Someone has posted your bail.

Bail? Calvary didn't have bail. Someone must have offered them a fuck of a lot of money. --Who was it? he croaked, standing up.

One of them threw him his Halloween costume, watched him with cold eyes as he struggled to put it on. --That homosexual friend of yours.

He laughed at that. --Which one?

\--The one with hair like a mop.

Jordan. His eyes stung with tears, gratitude and sorrow and shame at being such a burden to anyone who loved him. He followed the man out.

Elijah was waiting for him, at the door. --Understand you are still under arrest. You are not to leave Calvary.

\--So much for my trip to Disneyworld, he said, and walked past the bastard, trying to manage some kind of coolness in spite of his new awkward walk.

 

Mary and Jordan were waiting for him outside. She didn't say a word, she only flew over to him and damn near knocked him over, hugging him so hard he groaned, just clinging, her heart beating so hard he could feel it against his own chest. He held her close, from his elbows up, anyway, hands crooked. He looked at Jordan over her shoulder. --The bail.

\--Six thousand.

\--Thank you.

\--You owe me a blow job, fucker, Jordan said, and burst into tears.

He reached out one arm to Jordan, and stood holding them both, hurting, wishing like Hell that someone was there to comfort _him._ \--Why did they let me go? What makes them think I won't run?

\--They burned the truck. And they…took my…motorcycle, Jordan said, still sobbing.

He sighed. He wasn't surprised.

He'd had no intention of running, anyway.

Zillah was standing about twenty feet away, smoking.

He pushed Mary into Jordan's arms, walked over to Zillah. --You betrayed me.

Zillah's eyes gleamed. --You betrayed yourself eons ago.

He hit him, one good clean straight punch with his right hand. Until it landed he wasn't sure he had it in him. It hurt the holy fuck out of his elbow. It swung Zillah's head around and knocked the cigarette out of his mouth. He felt the cigarette burn his knuckles, and heard Jordan cry out, Mary calling to him. 

Zillah turned back to him, his eyes still bright, his mouth bleeding. 

\--I am the only thing I haven't betrayed, he spat at Zillah.

He turned away, and went home with his wife.

 

She made him chicken soup and cleaned the blood off him and kissed him and let him cry. It was shock, he supposed. He couldn't stop crying. He wanted to talk to her, wanted to tell her about it. Every time he tried he would feel himself thrown up against that wall, cold and naked and outnumbered, and the tears would drown him. He was reduced to a child he had no memory of being, and she was the mother he had never had.

 

(43)

 

Two days later, just after sunset, there was a hesitant tap at his door.

He was curled up on the bed with her, still shaking from being hammered with questions and sneers and torture. He was trying to explain it to her, desperate to get it out of his head before it poisoned him.

He had a jelly glass in his hand that she kept quietly refilling with straight tequila. He would try to tell her, and he could only manage one or two words, or a fragment of a sentence at best before the shaking threatened to crawl up from his belly into his mouth. She just nodded, looking at him with bottomless eyes, her feet curled under her, her thigh pressed tight against his. Every time he had to stop, she would say I love you, and kiss his mouth, his chin, his cheeks, trying to soothe wounds that he had healed as much as he could, that ran too deep for him to touch.

The frightened little knock startled them both. His breath seized in his lungs, hard and heavy as frozen lead. There was an instant of terrible instinct to run, to hide, and then _mary...baby...I'll kill anyone who comes in here_ snapped through his head, and he stood up.

She tried to catch hold of him. He was already going to the door, his hand behind him, comfortably near the switchblade in his back pocket.

Jordan was standing at the foot of the steps, looking ashamed and uncomfortable. He was dusty from boots to dreadlocks, and his makeup was smeared down to faded ghost lines. Zillah was out by the mailbox, near the scrape in the stand that passed as a road, a dim abstract of gleaming white paint and the crimson glow of his cigarette. He was looking away from the house, his eyes distant.

\--Hey, Jordan had whispered, not looking him in the eye.

Mary was standing in the doorway, just behind him, and when she saw Jordan's expression she began to cry, very softly.

He waved her back inside, came out and sat on the steps. 

\--Still?

Jordan nodded, miserable and hiding it badly. --They sent me, I guess, because they thought it would be easier--

\--Easier? He laughed at that one, deliberately. --Bullshit. They made you tell me because they knew it would hurt us both, because they knew I wouldn't kill you, and because-- 

He stopped. _Because I just happen to be number one on a list of four. And you and Mary are Undesirables numbered Two and Three._

\--Like, kill the messenger? Jordan said, making a bleak attempt at a smile that was not returned.

They sat there for a minute, both numb.

\--He told me to tell you to read Leviticus, chapter twenty, verse twenty-seven.

He looked at Jordan, horrified, staring his own death in the face.

\--What? What does it mean?

It took him a minute. Then, he recited quietly, --A man...that is a wizard shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones.

Silence.

Jordan finally said, --So what are you going to do?

\--When is it?

\--Two days. Friday. At noon.

He sighed. --Only two days? My, what shall I wear? he said, dripping sarcasm.

\--You can't be serious, Jordan said, appalled. Elijah said if you publicly recant, then it's over. No more torture or jail or anything. I mean, all you have to do is--

\--Sell my soul? he snapped, bitterly.

He stood up, then, and turned his back on his oldest friend, his hand on the doorknob. --Jordan, this has been really great, but I have to go spend two days with my family.

\--Mary--

\--I know all about Mary. I was _there,_ remember? he snarled at him.

\--Wait--

He stepped inside. He saw Jordan's face twisting, just as he closed the door.

Then Mary fell against him, a bundle of tears and terror and rage.

 

He spent three hours of his remaining forty-eight holding Jordan, and letting him cry. The forty-five that were left, he spent in bed with Mary.

He lay as close to her as he could, both naked, trying to climb inside each other's skin. He was talking to her in a frantic fast whisper, telling her everything he could remember of his fragmented life, every thought he had ever had, everything she meant to him, everything this world had been to him, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. It wasn't enough. There wasn't enough time, and he couldn't talk fast enough, couldn't remember it all, couldn't, couldn't. He was trying to record himself in her, and he would never do it in time.

On the second night-- _my last night on earth,_ he kept thinking, he made love to her, both sobbing, and it was over too quickly, the pleasure nothing against the dawn, the flesh already becoming less a part of him, and he crushed her close to him, and said, --I will love you forever. There is no until death do us part. I won't be apart from you. I'll be here, right here, right here.

And dawn was coming, coming fast and hard, coming at both of them at terminal velocity.

 

(44)

 

He woke up, and his first thought was, _Oh, god, I fell asleep._

She shook him again, gently, and he pushed himself up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed. 

\--You let me fall asleep.

A shadow that was already behind her face reared its head. She turned away, set the coffeepot down. It was too late. He had already seen it. --I thought...you needed your rest. You were so tired...

 _Won't there be time enough for that?_ he wanted to scream out at her. He didn't. --What time is it?

Her shoulders drew themselves up into an anguished line. --It's early. There's plenty of time, she said, wiping dust off a counter top that had no dust.

Plenty of time. After all this, all they had been through, and she was lying to him now. He groped at the foot of the bed, found the plastic weight of a half-gallon container. He unscrewed the red cap, glanced at it for the first time in his life. The letters swam, refusing to be read. He lifted it to his mouth and gulped down warm orange juice. He put it down, screwed the cap back on. 

She might want it, later.

The silence was unbearable. --Are you hungry? she asked him, her voice a terrible attempt at casual. It was like someone cutting you open with a rusty knife, and trying to do it politely.

Hungry. Yes, he was hungry. He wanted caviar and grilled shrimp and steak and potato chips. He wanted a margarita in a glass so cold there was frost around the rim. He wanted peaches and carrots and licorice and strawberry bubble gum. He was one long merciless skein of desperate appetite from lips to stomach.

\--No. I'm all right, he said, running his hands through his long hair. He pulled some of it in front of his face, half-expecting it to have gone platinum during the night. Still black. There was that, at least. He looked at her, and her hair was still black, too. He was vaguely disappointed. It was supposed to go white. Probably they were both too far beyond terror. Or was it white underneath years of dye?

She saw him looking at her, and crossed the tiny room. A one-room trailer, out in this godforsaken desert. It was the closest thing to home either of them had ever known.

She took his hands in hers, and he almost pushed her away, certain he would shatter at her touch. He barely felt her hands, except for a sensation of softness, cold.

\--Do you want to take a shower?

God, the banality of that was breaking his heart.

He tried to stand up. Nothing changed. He looked up at her, into her eyes for the first time that morning. --I can't--

She leaned down and kissed him, stopping them both. He was drowning in her, their mouths tangling together, and he put his hands on her stomach, over the tight swollen miracle there, and she covered his hands with her own.

 _I can't do this,_ he thought. _I can't leave this._ He imagined a microscopic heartbeat under his fingers, dark clusters of future eyes under transparent skin, staring unblinking into wet warm darkness. 

And then her lips were gone, the smell of her hair was gone, and she was pulling him to his feet, the four steps across the trailer to the tiny bathroom. He had to lean on her, his arm pressing too hard into her narrow shoulders, and she did not stumble, did not complain.

 _She's carrying all three of us,_ he thought. _How did she ever get so strong?_

 

He only stood there, with piss-warm water beating down on him. She watched him, her hair dripping in her eyes, arms crossed over her swollen breasts. He kept his back to her, his face and his fingertips pressed against the cool damp tiles. He could still see her.

 _Love will tear us apart._ He could hear Ian Curtis, that bleak hopeless angel's voice, and he turned to her at the same moment she opened her arms to him, and he fell to his knees with his face pressed into her stomach, sobbing, and the words were spilling out of him, too fast and sharp for him to hold them back.

\--My favorite color. You have to tell him, do you remember it?

\--Blue, she whispered to him. She was crying too, they both were. The shower made it invisible, but he could feel it through her skin.

\--The photograph, he was saying. The one from the airplane, the one where there's an angel in the clouds. It's in that envelope in the top drawer. I want him to have it, I want you to give it to him.

\--Yes, she said, trying to put her fingertips against his lips to stop him from killing them both.

\--You have to. You have to tell him...about me, about what I'm like. About this.

\--Stop it, she said, begging him. Her hands were moving over him, slick and wet, smoothing off sweat and dust, tangling through the wreck of his hair.

He closed his eyes. He hadn't wanted to fall asleep.

He had wanted to spend all of their last night making love to her, without words, telling her with his lips, his eyes, his hands. He had wanted to fuck her hard and slow and completely, one more time, to make sure she wouldn't forget.

She cupped his chin, tilted his face back to shave him. Razor, scraping over his cheeks, his upper lip, the cup of bone just above his eyes. Still no eyebrows. For Spectre.

He kept his head still. His lips were still moving. He was sure it wasn't even words anymore.

 

He submitted to being scrubbed dry with a threadbare towel, and stood awkward and silent while she moved around him, finding clothes. He held up his limbs obediently, like a child, like a doll, and let her dress him.

What would she do? Afterwards? 

There was a trailer on the outskirts of town, a battered, rusted, lopsided thing where a terrible woman lived, a woman with parchment hands and a leather face and a terrible yellow smile. Hanging from the wooden skeleton of what had been this woman's porch was a rusted coathanger, dangling from a piece of frayed twine, the only sign she needed to advertise her obscene trade.

_No. She wouldn't._

Not to the last thing he could leave her, a fragment of his flesh and blood and bone. Their son. 

He knew it would be a son.

She put the corset around his waist, pulled the laces tightly, with the quick merciless snap she knew he loved. It had once been hers. He had inherited it, when it would only fit his stick-figure frame, when she had given it up in frustration almost a month ago. He could still hear her saying, half-joking, _You wear it._ And he had. He was glad to have it now, holding him up, snug and close against ribs and spine, holding insides in and the outside out with a wall of metal stays and black satin.

He stepped into his pants and let her pull them up. He was hard even before she adjusted him gently to zip them. Both of them pretended not to notice it. It was too late for that, now.

She was buttoning his shirt, her fingers gentle against his throat, his wrists, and he caught up her hands and kissed the palms of them. It was not a gesture of thanks, and there was little of kindness in it. She pressed her hands against his mouth for just a little too long after the kiss was over.

He stumbled away from her, hearing her rummaging around behind him for her own clothes. He made it over to the tiny dressing table and picked up a black eyeliner pencil. He stared at it, vaguely, trying to remember the trick of canceling the space between hand and eye.

He managed it finally, and had his left eye half finished when she said, --Could you help me?

He looked in the mirror at her, behind him, and the pencil snapped in his hand, smearing makeup the color of oil on his fingers. --I'm sorry, he began, fumbling, near tears over this small accident.

She took his hands, found a tissue--women had that magic, the ability to conjure tissues out of air--and wiped off the kohl. --It's all right, she told him, touching his cheek, and turned around, guiding his hands to her back. 

He struggled with it, this beautiful black dress he had bought her, with tiny black glittering buttons from neck to waist. He closed the last one, and before he could stop himself he said, --You shouldn't wear this.

She turned back to him, and now, of all the times, her eyes were bright, wet. --Don't you like it?

\--It's beautiful. You're beautiful, he told her, hoarse and choking on demon tears. --It's just...I don't know how you'll get it off--

He tore himself away from her, violently, and found himself face to face with the mirror again, powerless to turn away from the face that stared back at him, accusing, one whiteblue eye painted, one hazel eye bare. Was that it, why they were doing this? His mismatched evil eye?

\--I won't, she said behind him, crying. --I won't take it off. Not ever.

He closed his eyes. He knew that she meant it. It terrified him. That he would leave her trapped in this funeral dress, until her belly swelled enough to split the seams. He saw her, lying alone and too small in their bed, gasping and sweating and sobbing, pushing their son into this bleached empty world with that dress bunched up around her hips.

He covered his face with his hands.

She pushed him down into the fragile chair, turned him to face her. She picked up the broken pencil, tilted his face towards her again, closing his eyes with a brush of her fingertips.

This was making love, with wax and paint and pigment. She put his mask on him, soft textures brushing his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips. She did it slowly, and he was so grateful for that he was afraid he would stop breathing. And he knew, even before the caress of bone-white powder and the soft kiss she gave him, that she had done it right, that she had colored him fierce and unrepentant.

He turned to the mirror. 

Now, the face he saw was his own.

 

She pushed him to the foot of the bed, and he watched her painting her own face. He was trying to memorize her, the violet shadow at the crook of her elbow, the serpent line of her back under the black teeth of buttons, the quick, agonized motions of her fingertips as she sketched her own mask.

And she put on the halo, the tinsel halo from her Halloween costume. That was so beautiful, god, it was breaking his heart all over again, into pieces so small he didn't know how they all kept beating.

She was finished, and she turned to him, and their eyes wound together again. _So, here we are. It's come to this._

He thought she meant to embrace him, and he had half-raised his hands when he saw she was moving away from him, into the bathroom. She came out again, and when he saw what she had in her hands the mask nearly shattered.

_She understands. She does._

At that moment, he knew. He could do this. He could.

She was holding a transparent plastic oval bottle, the label dark with grease, the snap-up lid a pink-beige like a child's palms.

She knelt in front of him, tears streaking through the cadaver-pale powder, and she pulled his feet into her lap and poured oil into her cupped hands.

Baby oil. The last time they had used it had been for anal sex, which he had persuaded her into by alternating deep wet kisses and whispered promises of gentleness and excruciating pleasure.

Almost a year ago. Before he had thought about babies. Before he had thought about the word _anointing._

She stroked it along the tops of his feet, along the arches, between his toes, keeping her eyes knotted into his. Brown, painted with ink, with long black lashes, like the eyes of a unicorn he had seen in a poster in a forgotten head-shop. Which of his eyes was she looking at? Hazel? Bleached blue?

She closed her hands tight around his ankles, squeezed hard enough to remind him of shackles and to let him know that this was an embrace. She staggered up to her feet, tearing her eyes free of his. Her foot struck the bottle, and it dripped two slick drops onto the colorless vinyl floor. He leaned over and set it upright, snapped the cap closed. The baby might need it. Later.

She put his boots on him, and he tensed his feet, feeling the squish of oil, and she pulled the laces tight and double-knotted them. Of course. Couldn't have the Antichrist tripping over his shoelaces. He almost laughed at that. Knowing what such an ugly sound would do to her kept him from it.

She kept her hands resting on his boots and looked up at him. Don't, he wanted to plead, helpless.

\--Do you have to? I mean--

He shook his head at her, pulled her close. She felt unfamiliar against him, the curves of her body subtly altered in unknown ways. He was beginning it already, constructing distance where once there had been none.

He stood up, and she went behind him. Her hands came up, around his back, and the feathers brushed his cheeks. Her necklace, her favorite necklace, a collar of vertical black plumes that looked like something David Bowie might wear.

\--Are you sure?

She nodded, her forehead against his back.

He looked into the mirror one more time. This picture. This, to remember himself by.

 

They were already outside. He had known they would be, but he hadn't imagined the noise, myriad voices, the shuffling of footsteps, the rustling of heavy clothes. 

She put his hat on him--a strange, tall pilgrim hat Spectre had given him out of his crazy hat collection. He'd almost forgotten it. She kept her hand at the small of his back to steady him.

He thought of the face in the mirror, and his hand closed around the doorknob, and he straightened his back and flung it open.

They were silent, abruptly. He made his face imperious, filled his eyes with burning contempt. He looked at each of them, every one of them. 

Luke and Erik were there, standing distant and sad, with Spectre just behind them. and he knew that only he could see them. Jordan and Zillah were near the back of the huddled crowd, and neither one of them looked back at him, or even tried to meet his eyes. 

_Too much?_ he thought, furious and grieving. _You didn't have to come here. And I didn't hear you saying much to defend me either, back when your support just might have mattered._

That wasn't fair, and he knew it. He didn't care.

He stood there and let them take it all in. _Take a good look. I want every goddamned one of you paying attention. This is what you fear. Am I what you expected? What you hoped for?_

He stepped down, Mary's hand groping for his. Having him down at eye level--or close to, anyway, since he towered above most of them--seemed to renew their courage, or at least their hatred. The shouting, the jeers began again almost immediately. He felt her cringe against him.

He felt something brush his free hand, tiny fingers twining around his. He looked down, startled. A little girl, painted, wound in a funeral dress two sizes too big for her.

Rachel. With confusion, and fear, in her newly made face. 

Her hand in his was like the bones of a bird.

He stepped forward again, surrounded now. His knees were weak. Mary slipped her arm around his waist, and the jackals closed in around them. 

 

_say it, why don't you_

_leave her here, and her pregnant? what kind of monster are_

_repent! don't you know this is your last chance to_

_satan has blinded you! satan is inside you!_

_\--jesus christ--_

_\--forgiveness--_

_\--salvation--_

_\--forgiveness--_

_\--repent--_

_always knew, i always knew that you were, you--_

 

It all ran together, into a litany of accusations, and the scuffling friction of footsteps in the white-hot sand, and the yellow blaze of the sun, and a dark heavy drum pounding underneath it all.

_Why am I doing this? Why? Do I really think this will prove anything? Teach them anything? They're beyond that! This is madness!_

Two words. All he had to do was say two words.

They'd hurt him, of course, in the interest of purifying him utterly, probably quite badly, but on the other side of it all he would go home. Teach Rachel to spell _bird_ and _laugh_ and _galaxy._ Hold Mary's hands, stroke her hair, help her breathe when--

_No. That would prove something. Would I ever know myself in the mirror again, if I became that kind of example?_

He turned to look at his lover. She tried to give him a brave smile, and mouthed _I love you._ Or maybe she'd said it out loud, and he hadn't been able to hear her over them.

Two words. Why should he have to prove anything? Why did it have to be him? And why did it have to _be like this?_

The words were aching on his tongue, pounding at his teeth, a heavy sharp temptation, and the sun was a white dagger slashing up at him from the sand, snapping grit and inferno air into his eyes, his lungs, and he couldn't breathe couldn't breathe and

He fell.

He dragged Mary down with him, and she kept him from hitting the ground, cradled him close across her knees, stroking his hair. 

\--Isn't this enough? she asked him, crying. --Don't you know I will still love you if you don't do this? Just _say_ it. They'll let us go, they will...

He looked up, past her angel's face, into thousands of scornful impatient eyes. --No. They won't. They never will. This is already done. I was born, into this.

That was it, wasn't it? To serve in heaven, or to--

Rachel tugged at his hand, looking down at him with eyes that were much too old for her face. --Did you hurt yourself?

_yes, I've hurt myself...very badly...one might even call this a suicide. That's what they'll tell themselves, anyway._

He groped through the thick air for her with one shaking hand, brushed her hair back from her worried little face. --Remember what you see here today, he said.

She nodded, not understanding.

\--Remember. Tell your children.

\--I will.

\--Promise me.

\--I promise, she whispered, sad, even though she didn't really know why.

His reflection was in front of him, in the air. He struggled up to his knees, clawing hair out of his face, looking into his own eyes.

He thought, _I repent nothing._

He bared his teeth, and stood up, and pulled Mary up, and walked on, staring straight ahead. Rachel took his hand again, and gave him back his hat.

He put it on, and started walking. This time, he was leading them.

He could just see the crosses, over the next dune. Not that. Otherwise he would have been carrying the goddamn thing already. And they wouldn't have used that for the likes of him anyway, too dignified. He knew his sentence, and the almighty cross had nothing to do with it.

They were stopping, ahead of him, crowding into a half-circle in front of a broken wall of sandstone. _So soon?_

He drew in a deep breath. 

They moved aside, to let him pass. Mary stopped, just at the edge of the invisible edge of the circle. The last few steps, he had to take alone. 

He could feel her willing him to look at her.

He didn't.

He glanced once at Rachel, thinking, _remember._

Then, he let them go, and stepped forward. His feet were still slick with oil, still burning with the ghost of her touch.

Two steps. Four. Eight.

He turned to face them.

A sea of faces. Jordan and Zillah, frozen. Both of them had faces flooded with tears.

Mary, grieving, frozen too. Rachel, looking up at the others, confused and frightened. Luke and Erik, faces he might have known, have loved, in another world, a better world. The others a blur of painted hatred, righteous indignation, triumph, hunger. Vultures, dressed in Sunday best funeral black.

The scene was too bright, too sharp, as vivid as if it had been electroplated. It left the ghost of itself in angles and edges, etched behind his eyelids.  
There would be no reading of sentence or prayer, no last rites, no last rights. Nothing so trite or dramatic, not here. There was no need. They all knew why he was there, why they all were there. He could see the same song in each pair of eyes, the same grateful prayer-- _thank God it isn't me._

Not this time.

An unspoken signal passed through them. One person bent, then another. Then a silent ritual as each knelt and picked up a stone. He saw a young man near the front with long colorless hair and one black glove pick up a chunk of sandstone, then discard it in favor of a heavier piece.

Where first? His temple? Fingers? Ribs? Collarbone? God help him, his face? Did it matter? Had it ever mattered? Had anything ever mattered, if it was all spiraling down to this?

A woman beside Rachel--her mother probably--put a stone in the girl's hand. Rachel looked up at her, bewildered, and the woman whispered something fiercely, frowning. Rachel began to cry, and tried to hand the stone back to her mother, shaking her head. The woman pinched her, hard, left an angry red mark like a comma on her skinny arm, and darted a terrified glance behind her to see if anyone had noticed her daughter's obscene display of compassion.

He looked at Mary, then. She put her empty hand on her stomach, her eyes liquid and suffering. At least she still had the courage to meet his eyes.

He spread his arms, wide, the crosses behind him, and went down on his knees. He tore at the collar of his shirt, ripped open the cloth to expose the latticework of scars across his chest.

His mouth was dry. He tasted orange juice, dust, and tears.

He threw back his head, and stared into the sky.

His last thought was, _I will not scream._

 

It took so much longer than he'd expected.


	4. ECLIPSE

(45)

 

Mary went to him when it was over, fighting her way through angry hands to reach him. She cradled him close, no longer crying, only rocking him, endlessly, and whispering _no, no, no,_ until two men she vaguely remembered from the Halloween party took her away, very gently, whispering something in an alien tongue that made her able to breathe again.

She looked up at these strangers, and saw two faces that might have been the same face, drawn by two different artists. --I know you. You were at Spectre's party. Except it wasn't his party. Just at his house. Because he's dead. Everyone I love is dead, she said, her voice flat, emotionless.

\--Mary, you have to have hope, said the one painted in blue.

\--And you have to remember that just because he is gone, your love for him is not. You have to go on. Do you remember what he said to you, about Spectre? How many people have to die at one execution?

She shook her head, unable to comprehend that. She was seeing something strange, like a bluewhite light surrounding these two strangers. --Is he with Spectre?

\--Yes. For now, said one, or both. --Come with us. You need to go home. 

\--No no no! she said, screaming suddenly, pulling away from their friendly hands, clinging to the corpse of her lover. --I can't leave him here! He'll be all alone, and it will be night soon! It will be night soon!

\--Yes. And after that, it will be dawn, they said, drawing her away.

 

Jordan left with the others, but he slipped away from the crowd and went back to the Golgotha. He didn't dare to touch the body. He sat as close to it as he could, crying like a lost soul. --We didn't find the Sanctuary. You _promised,_ he sobbed. --I can't find it by myself. I'm not any good at stuff like you are. You're good at stuff. Please don't be dead. You remember that book you read me? _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?_ And they do that to Aslan, they kill him and because he did it and he was innocent he came right back? Deeper magic from before the dawn of time?

He was rocking, and he sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. --Can't it be like that? Can't you come back tomorrow? Can't you? Please? _Can't you?_

\--I want to die without you here. _I want to die._

There was no answer.

After a while, he leaned his head back, and began to howl.

 

Zillah watched his lover, crouching behind rocks. Something was wrong with this perfect body he wore. He was cold, and shaking, and something was all wrong with his breathing, and he couldn't see. He couldn't see.

He raised his hands to his eyes, and tried to heal them, and it didn't help. When he took his hands away they were wet with tears.

Human tears.

\--Oh, God, what have I done? he whispered, and he stumbled away, back towards Calvary, hiding his face from the sky.

(46)

 

Nila answered the door after about five minutes of Zillah's persistent knocking. --It's you, she said, coldly, standing with the door only partially open to make it obvious that he would not be invited inside. --We've given you all the money we're going to give you. Now go away.

He was holding the money in his hand, silver coins, and he threw them at her and pulled out the .45 and put two bullets in her, one in her throat, one in her skull.

Her hands groped at the missing space of her forehead, finding soft weeping tissue, and she coughed up a splurt of blood and toppled, her legs askew so that he could see her underwear.

He stepped over her corpse. Aaron was wheeling himself down the hallway. Above his head there was a picture of Jesus, the one they always had with the Messiah looking kind and benevolent and sad, his hands outstretched in welcome and forgiveness.

\--This is from Him, Zillah said, and emptied the gun into Aaron. One of the bullets ricocheted off the wheelchair, slammed into the wall, spraying chips of plaster.

He dropped the gun, and stepped over Nila again, left her there with her underwear still showing and the door open, swinging vaguely in the wind. He looked up. There were fierce and furious clouds, and it seemed that there might be a storm.

 

Jordan cried and screamed himself to sleep. The sunlight woke him up. He had curled up beside the body, the way they had slept together in scary places, only today he wouldn't poke his friend awake, pry open his eyelids and blow into his eyes, laugh and laugh. No more of that.

He cried a little again, and took up the body's broken hands and kissed them. He was thirsty. He still wanted to die.

He got up, and wandered towards Spectre's house, looking back often, still crying. --I love you, he called back, and waved.

\--Deeper magic from before the dawn of time, he muttered to himself, saying it over and over, thinking of mice chewing at cords binding a dead, beautiful lion.

 

Zillah found the rope in Spectre's tool shed. He stood under the oak tree, and looked at the marijuana plant, still growing over the grave. He set the rope down, went inside the house, filled the dinosaur glass with water and came back outside. He poured it on the plant, refilled twice more, and then rinsed the glass and put it away. He picked up a butcher knife, and went back outside.

He stripped down to his pants, and cut FORGIVE ME into his chest. It was hard to do right, upside down. The pain was liquid and fierce, and he cried out once, and dropped the knife, his hands bloody and shaking. 

The noose was hard to tie, with his hands so slippery and clumsy. He managed it, finally, and threw it over a branch that jutted out horizontally, about nine feet high. Then he realized he had no way to manage this, cursed, tied the loose end of the rope to a lower branch. The noose swayed in the wind, looking like paradise. He stared at it, mesmerized, for a long time, before he went back inside for a chair from the dining room.

He climbed up there, and the noose was just low enough if he stood on tiptoe. He pulled it over his head, crying human tears, and tightened it, the rope rough against his throat. 

\--I knew not what I did, he said, to no one at all. --God help me. I know now. 

He kicked the back of the chair so that it fell out from under him.

It wasn't enough of a drop to break his neck. He died slowly, in agony, and when it was over it was like falling into deep, cold water, and the soulless thing he had sold himself to was waiting for him there, in the deep.

 

Jordan found him that way, swaying, his feet just over the marijuana plant. He stared and stared, no longer able to cry, his hands smashed against his mouth, and turned and wandered back into the desert.

(47)

 

Mary had done one thing when she went home. She had gone into the bathroom, used his razor and his shaving cream, and shaved off her eyebrows. It made her face a little like his, so she painted on his makeup, crying a little, without knowing why the eyeliner wouldn't stay.

After that she lay in their bed, on his side, on her back, her hands over her stomach, staring up at the ceiling, at the nothing beyond. Every now and then she would turn her face into his pillow, and breathe in the scent of him. She was trying to ration herself, doing that, not sure if the smell was finite, wanting to keep it for as long as she could.

When she was hungry she got up, moving like a marionette, and went to the kitchen and opened a can of something. She didn't know what it was, spaghetti, chicken soup, peas, she didn't care, it didn't matter. She ate it cold, out of the can, and when the hunger stopped she dropped the can and the spoon into the sink and went back to the bed.

There was nothing.  
interlude: Outside

WELL DONE  
MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL  
SERVANT  
.......

 

......……….

 

....………………….

 

……………….fuck you

 

i am no one's servant

 

.........

(48)

Jordan was walking, vaguely back towards the Golgotha, when it happened. A shadow moved over the desert, in a smooth even plane.

He looked up. The edge of the sun was vanishing, as though someone had bitten a piece out of it. It was going black.

Maybe it was the end of the world.

\--Good, you deserve it, he told the world, and kept walking.

 

He reached the Golgotha at twilight. Or, whatever. The sun had stayed black until it had set. The moon was almost clear of the horizon, huge and bloated and just, all, wrong. 

The body was gone.

He ran towards the shallow space where it had been, crying again. At least they could have left _that_ alone.

In the bloodsoaked sand in the middle of the half-circle, the stones had been carefully arranged to spell four words:

I FOUND THE SANCTUARY

He looked, and then he laughed, and then he yelled and laughed and danced a strange awkward child dance in a circle, staring up at the rising moon, the moon, the strange red atrocity-colored moon, and the stars glittering like surgical steel.

(49)

 

Elijah sat in his warm house, freezing. Something was wrong. He had never experienced intuition before, and he did not recognize it. He wrapped himself in a quilt and sat shivering, a Bible by his hand. His living room was a gleaming haven of electricity and expensive fabric. He didn't see any of it. His eyes were pulled, over and over again, to the dark space beyond the windows.

\--Oh God, protect me, he whispered, staring out into the dark.

The lights flickered. He froze, fingers digging hard into the arms of the chair. They brightened again. He sighed, relieved, and they all went out at once, with a faint _click._

He knew. 

\--No, no, no….he began, a prayer with God and Jesus edited to save time. 

His front door opened.

He screamed, once, clinging to the quilt, and his visitor was preceded by something like wind that was not wind, something that had two pairs of hands,something that picked him up and dropped him on the floor ten feet in front of his chair.

He cowered, on his hands and knees, shaking. There were no more words. Elijah could see His feet. His bare, colorless feet. He dared not look up.

A stone dropped onto the carpet, beside his hand, clotted with blood and sand. The words came from everywhere, soft and almost amused.

\--At the count of three, I'm going to tell you a story, Elijah.

\-- _NO,_ he said, begging, trying to crawl backwards. Even in the darkness the room was in crystal clear focus, suddenly, so vivid that it hurt his head to see it. The stone was in his hand, now, without him knowing how it had gotten there.

\--One.

\-- _Don't do this!_ he screamed, the stone up, held in front of his face as though he wanted to look closer.

\--Two.

\--I don't want to hear! _GOD!_ Don't, don't, I don't want to hear, he said, sobbing, his hand drawn back, his eyes locked on the stone.

\--Three.

Only the one time. That was all it took. 

The stone sent bone fragments from his eye socket slamming into his brain. If the story was told, he did not hear it. 

 

Something woke her. 

A heavy snapping wind was shaking the trailer. The baby squirmed inside her, kicking fitfully.

She sat up, her hands pressed to her stomach, muttering _shush, shush._ And something drew her to her feet, pulled her to the door, and she stood there with one hand on the doorknob and one hand on her stomach, and then she heard it.

_\--Mary...._

Oh, God. No. 

She was going crazy. 

She couldn't go crazy. She had to have the baby. 

She could go crazy after that. 

Not now.

She opened the door, and stared out into the night. The wind was furious, sending stinging sheets of sand into her face, her eyes. She raised her hand to shield her eyes, and called out, --Who's there?.

\-- _Mary,_ the voice said again, like a sigh, like joy.

She ran outside, into the yard, and stood panting, and screamed out into the wind, --Who's there? _Who the fuck is there?_

She spun in a slow, scared circle, sobbing, holding her stomach.

The baby kicked her hard enough to hurt her.

And then she felt it. Hands, running up her arms, and down again, loving and gentle, just like he had touched her, that first time in Spectre's kitchen, _just like he had touched her, that first time._

\--I'm dreaming, she said, the words snagging on a sob. She closed her eyes, afraid to breathe, afraid to end it.

\--No dream, he said in her ear.

\--Dreaming, she insisted, crying without sound.

He put his arms around her, and she saw his skin, silver and smooth and without the tattoos, absolutely hairless, the nails like little chips of chrome, his flesh gleaming phosphorescent, as though it were illuminated from the inside.

She looked up into the sky, crying, and mouthed _oh God._ The moon was full. It had been waning yesterday. And it was the color of blood.

\--And there will be no more death, and no more suffering, for all the former things have passed away, he said in her ear. And it was no dream.

The war had begun. The war to end all wars.

She moved to turn into his embrace, sobbing, and his hands caught her shoulders and stopped her, and his hair blew in front of her face, as white as snow. --Wait, he whispered.

\--Why? _Please._

\--I have to warn you first, before you see me, he said, kissing her neck with lips like mercury. --I have a name now, Mary. And I don't look like I used to.

She turned to him anyway, to look into his eyes. His red, red eyes.

He stroked her face, erasing the tears like the memory of a nightmare.

She reached up, in wonder, and took his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to talk to readers. You're welcome to reach me all sorts of ways:  
> thenineteen.net  
> darkmaestro19.tumblr.com/  
> facebook.com/darkmaestro19  
> Be well and have fun, dears.


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